Outros olhares sobre a colonização do Brasil: ressignificações do passado na literatura híbrida juvenil brasileira em diálogo com o livro didático de ensino de história

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This study, part of the Research Group “Resignifications of the past in America: processes of reading, writing and translating hybrid genres of history and fiction – paths to decolonization”, demonstrates that Brazilian contemporary hybrid narratives of history and fiction with a decolonizing nature for the youth public can contribute to the critical teaching of history in the final years of Elementary School. In these literary works, there is the use of scriptural strategies that are close to contemporary historical novels of mediation, as they review the past from the perspective of characters made invisible in the traditional historiographic records. These narratives present a decolonizing ideology by privileging versions of history seen from below (Sharpe, 1992) and many precepts of the historiographic current of new history. Thus, our general objective is the comparative study of the hybrid narratives for the youth public called Ana Preciosa e Manuelim e o roubo das moedas na época do ciclo do ouro (2004), by Maria José Silveira, Os estrangeiros (2012), by Marconi Leal, A Descoberta do Novo Mundo (2013) and A viagem proibida: nas trilhas do ouro (2013), both by Mary Del Priore, with two volumes of the history textbook, by Alfredo Boulos Júnior, História Sociedade & Cidadania (2018), for the seventh and eighth grades. We compare this corpus in order to analyze the discursive treatment given to the events of the “discovery” and colonization of Brazil in hybrid literature that blends history and youth fiction on these themes. Our goal is to examine, through the analysis of the writing strategies employed by the authors, their intentionality, connections with historiographical currents – whether traditional or new – and the ideology they generate. By giving visibility to hybrid fictional narratives and presenting a didactic-methodological proposal that, alongside the official learning of our country's history – primarily established through the use of textbooks – can serve as a means of decolonization for the individual being taught. Hybrid narratives offer alternative perspectives on the past and reveal new angles, characters, and conflicts surrounding historical events. These events have left observable traces in the current social structure, which is why these themes need to be discussed and analyzed in the classroom. This process aids in shaping decolonial readers in the present, who are aware of their past condition as subjugated and colonized individuals, the first step toward decolonizing perspectives and ways of thinking in Latin America. To this end, we are supported by the theoretical foundations of Alonso (1942), Lukács ([1965] 2009, [1955] 2011), Aínsa (1988, 1991), Hutcheon (1991), Márquez Rodríguez (1991), Menton (1993), Fernández Prieto (2003), Esteves (2010, 2013), and Fleck (2017). Additionally, we rely on the studies of White ([1973] 2019), Holanda (1974), Le Goff (1990), Burke (1992), Mendonza Fillola (1994), Bernd (1998), Coutinho (2003), Carvalhal (2006), Colomer (2007), Mignolo (2007, 2017), among others, to establish the relations between history, literature, and education, through a bibliographic and documentary research aligned with a qualitative approach with an interpretivist perspective. Besides our analyses, we present a didactic-methodological proposal for a Thematic Literary Workshop designed for the final years of Elementary School, with the intention to contribute to the connections between history and literature teaching, aiming at the development of decolonial readers. Our research reveals that Brazilian hybrid youth literature, when used as interdisciplinary reading material, has the potential to revitalize and support critical history teaching and the development of literary decolonial readers. This serves as a pathway to the decolonization of minds, identities, and the Latin American imaginary.