Formação superior e ressignificação do papel etnopolítico de mulheres indígenas na esfera pública no Alto Solimões/Amazonas

Abstract

The teaching performance imbricated in the triple border Brazil-Peru-Colombia, a multifaceted space from the cultural point of view, holder of a significant original population, and the female condition today, directed us to research on the higher education of indigenous women. Faced with the presence of indigenous women in higher education courses, in our pedagogical practice, and the challenges of all kinds imposed on women in our society, and especially on indigenous women, we feel encouraged to know the epistemological transformations that occurred with indigenous graduates and the impact of these transformations in their ethnopolitical performance. The need for a growing awareness of all segments of society about the female role, and its valorization, seems to us to be vital. Thus, we aim to analyze the position of indigenous women graduating from higher education courses in relation to their contributions to the social and political affirmation of these women in decision-making and power instances. We are anchored in the Comprehensive Sociology of Max Weber (2009), as a theory and method of investigative work that we wish to undertake. We propose a qualitative approach (Bogdan & Biklen, 1994) with ethnographic inspiration (Cardoso de Oliveira, 2000). We used as procedures for data collection the ethnographic methods of direct participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The research participants are seven graduates from higher education courses graduated from public higher education institutions in the Alto Solimões region. In addition to three Tikuna women candidates for councilor in the 2020 municipal elections, the female chieftaincy leadership of Umariaçu II during this research, and three indigenous Tikuna and Omagua/Kambeba women of public expression with local, regional and national performance. Still regarding the interlocutors of this research, we selected three indigenous men as indirect participants. The communities selected for this investigation are Umariaçu I and II, Tukuna indigenous land in Tabatinga, and Filadelfia community, Santo Antonio indigenous land, in Benjamim Constant - AM. The results of this research indicate a role of indigenous women in the spaces of decision and power that their community needs to access, in addition to the reverberation of this knowledge/training within the communities, evidencing higher education as a lever for their political participation and consequently for the strengthening of the ethnopolitical movement.