AFROFUTURISM AND EDUCATION OF ETHNIC-RACIAL RELATIONSHIPS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: ANCESTRALITY IN THE CONCEPTION OF FUTURES
Name: AISHÁ TUANNY SANT'ANNA JURESWSKI
Publication date: 10/12/2024
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ADILBÊNIA FREIRE MACHADO | Examinador Externo |
| DEBORA CRISTINA DE ARAUJO | Presidente |
| MARILEIDE GONCALVES FRANCA | Examinador Interno |
Summary: The aim of this master's research was to investigate whether it is possible to identify contributions from working with Afrofuturism to anti-racist education in high school English classes. A term coined in the 1990s as a result of the questioning of the scarcity of contributions from black authorship and representativeness in science fiction, Afrofuturism is now thought of as an artistic and philosophical movement as the production of black authorship, with black protagonists, contemplating their experience and their relationship with technology and imagination (Souza, 2019). Based on three axes (Afrofuturism, Education for Ethnic-Racial Relations and English language teaching), the research was also organized on three different theoretical fronts (references): to understand Afrofuturism as an artistic and philosophical movement, as well as exemplify it, understand its extension in popular culture and critical approach, we relied on writers and researchers Alondra Nelson (2002), Kodwo Eshun (2003), Ytasha Womack (2013), among others; considering the Education of Ethnic- Racial Relations, Nilma Lino Gomes (2011; 2012; 2017), Kabengele Munanga (2004; 2015; 2016) and bell hooks (2017); on English language teaching in secondary schools, we discussed how to approach it critically through Critical Racial Literacy and Critical Racial Theory with researchers Aparecida de Jesus Ferreira (2011; 2014) and Gloria Ladson-Billings (1998). The justification for this study is related to the defense that through literature and other artistic aspects, it is possible to diversify the stories told about the black African and Afro-diasporic population, as well as to present students of all ethnic-racial backgrounds with the possibility of accessing realities imagined by artists from diverse backgrounds. In this way, I propose the study of Afrofuturism and its potential in the classroom in the process of valuing African culture and history, as a strand that unites speculative fiction with the black experience, its ancestry and protagonism. With a qualitative approach, the methodology adopted was participant research, combined with experience reports and an interdisciplinary didactic sequence with an Afrofuturist theme, which was carried out in the last quarter of 2023 in a high school English class in the state public school system in the city of Vitória-ES. In addition, the field research included the construction of didactic material designed for written records and student activities. The results pointed to the potential of Critical Racial Theory and Critical Racial Literacy in English classes, by providing opportunities for discussions on how to confront hegemonic cultural teaching that is preconditioned to language, this time with Afrofuturism as an ally in this battle. Through the students' productions, as well as their interactions with the material and didactic sequence, in addition to understanding the theme, the students were led to appropriate artificial intelligence technologies, to be creative and to conjure up tomorrows in which their experiences were taken into account. They also strengthened their identities through positive representations of the black population, as well as questioning the historical erasure attributed to African and Afro-diasporic contributions to Brazil and the world.
