INDIGENOUS ACADEMIC WOMEN: INSURGENT VOICES AND RESISTANT BODIES IN BRAZILIAN UNIVERSITIES
Indigenous women. Coloniality. University. Body-territory. Lived experiences.
This paper investigates how the trajectories of indigenous women in Brazilian universities are developed and intertwined. It is grounded on the decolonial and intersectional perspective for the analytical understanding of the confrontation with the coloniality of being, of knowledge and of power in order to address, in its importance and complexity, the admission and the presence of the indigenous women's body-territory in Brazilian universities, especially in post-graduate studies (in master's and doctoral courses) and teaching, which is when they are immersed in the world of research and scientific production. The meanings of the demarcation of the academic territory are considered from the double dimension of their experiences: the expressed insurgency in their words and attitudes, which rise daily and mark their own trajectories during their courses and academic life, and the resistance embodied in the collective affirmation of identity, ancestral ethnic knowledge and commitment to their original communities. Once they have been enrolled in higher education, as body-territories, indigenous women are challenged to persist in institutions that still do not think of themselves from the perspective of and together with the Indigenous Peoples that are part of them. Furthermore, it was noted that the production of indigenous-authored knowledge is deeply rooted in their cultures, contributing to the conservation and updating of their cosmovisions and community values in movements of ethnic self-affirmation and fight for their lands. Throughout these pages, it is discussed that the attempts to erase their knowledge and extinguish Indigenous Peoples were stories directly experienced by indigenous women. Violence against them must be understood in the context of the processes that have been inflicted upon their bodies, but as they are organizing themselves in movements of resistance and re- existence, the dictates of power are being confronted and weakened. After all, they not only resist colonial-modern oppressions, but also re-exist, that is, they reinvent themselves as scholars, strongly contributing to the germination of a new society.