A fotografia digital e a construção da identidade do educador

Abstract

This research project has the objective of understanding how it is that the educator can reflexively construct his/her training trajectory and professional identity through memory, activated by photograph archives. This research project has the objective of understanding how it is that the educator can reflexively construct his/her training trajectory and professional identity through memory, activated by photograph archives. The research is based on the observed problem that digital photography is not utilized for the construction of individual and collective identity, or for the construction of knowledge. The project’s theoretical reference is presented as follows. Curriculum: Gimeno Sacristán (1998, 2013); Photography: Vilém Flusser (1985), Armando Silva (2008), Sebastião Salgado (2014), Cláudia dos Santos Almeida (2021); Democracy: Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2018); Technologies and narratives: Maria Elizabeth Bianconcini de Almeida (2016), Maria Elizabeth Bianconcini de Almeida and José Armando Valente (2012); Identity: Shoshana Zuboff (2020), Eduardo Monteiro and Artur Motta (2013); Memory: Eric R. Kandel (2009), Ramon M. Cosenza and Leonor B. Guerra (2011); Literacy: Roxane Rojo and Eduardo Moura (2012), Fernando José de Almeida (2005, 2009). As for the methodological procedures, I opted to research life histories with a qualitative emphasis, through the participation of six education professionals who told their life trajectories through photographs extracted from their family and personal archives. These participants organized their stories through the structure of photographs, audios, and texts; documents which, in an ordered manner, constructed their thoughts and sewed their memories according to their family values, affects, school knowledge, and political experiences. These made explicit the value of collective learning. The analysis was made based on five to ten photographs selected by the participants, which told of their experiences in the process of constructing their training as an educator. The analysis of this content was conducted based on Heloisa Szymanski (2002) and Chizzotti (2014). I opted to use the methodology of narratives, with the perspective of understanding how a return to memories through photographs updates the educator’s understanding of their process of training and professional identity. It is through these photographs that teachers, through the activation of significant memories stimulated by the pictures, reconstructed the paths for the development of their life goals. Such goals are made clear through the recapturing of their trajectories as teachers, of the people who first awakened their experiences with learning and educational conviviality, in addition of the construction of significant moments of knowledge about the self and others. I anticipated to categorize the various knowledges these educators brought and to highlight values that are shared and converge in their trajectories. The results of the research will contribute by indicating a pedagogic practice with a structured sequence as a tool to guide the use of digital photography as an innovative process to be used in the construction of knowledge about individual and collective identities, giving value to contemporary cultures of literacy by beginning with educators