An analysis of the anthropology of education at the Brazilian Anthropology Meetings (2000-2020) ^*

Abstract

The field of anthropology of education is in the process of consolidation in Brazil, having expanded considerably in recent years. In this article, I carry out an analysis of the anthropology of education in Brazil based on the activities developed in the last Brazilian Anthropology Meetings (2000-2020). I point to the presence of activities related to education in all editions of the analyzed period, perceiving a certain divide in terms of thematic: on the one hand, those related to the issues of teaching anthropology and the training of anthropologists, on the other, those related to a broader discussion about the anthropology of educational practices. This division reflects, to a certain extent, the different research agendas that anthropologists of education have. In the case of those linked institutionally to the Departments of Anthropology/Social Sciences, there is a greater concern with the theme of teaching anthropology and the training of anthropologists/social scientists, while those linked to the Faculties of Education are closer to a discussion about learning spaces, with emphasis on ethnographic research in the school context. I seek to capture how the agents mobilize themselves in the formation of anthropology of education in Brazil and how this reveals tensions and disputes involving mainly the institutional fragmentation of this field.

Anthropology of education; Academic field; History of anthropology; Brazilian anthropology; Brazilian Anthropology Meeting

Resumo

O campo da antropologia da educação está em processo de consolidação no Brasil, tendo se expandido nos últimos anos consideravelmente. Neste artigo, realizo uma análise da antropologia da educação no Brasil a partir das atividades desenvolvidas nas últimas Reuniões Brasileiras de Antropologia (2000-2020). Aponto para a presença de atividades relacionadas à educação em todas as edições do período analisado, percebendo-se certa clivagem em termos de temática: por um lado aquelas vinculadas às questões do ensino de antropologia e à formação de antropólogos, por outro, aquelas vinculadas a uma discussão mais ampla acerca da antropologia das práticas educativas. Essa divisão reflete, em certa medida, as diferentes agendas de pesquisa que os antropólogos da educação têm. No caso daqueles vinculados institucionalmente aos Departamentos de Antropologia/Ciências Sociais, observa-se maior preocupação com o tema do ensino de antropologia e a formação de antropólogos/cientistas sociais, ao passo que aqueles vinculados às Faculdades de Educação aproximam-se mais de uma discussão a respeito dos espaços de aprendizagem, com destaque para as pesquisas etnográficas em contexto escolar. Busco captar a forma como os agentes mobilizam-se na formação da antropologia da educação no Brasil e de como isso releva tensões e disputas envolvendo principalmente a fragmentação institucional desse campo.

Antropologia da educação; Campo acadêmico; História da antropologia; Antropologia brasileira; Reunião Brasileira de Antropologia

Introduction

To understand the formation of any disciplinary field is also to understand the hierarchies and power relations that exist in it so that to understand the place that education occupies in anthropology, it is necessary to take into account the complex webs of established relationships, as well as the extra-academical elements which enter the academic game. It is from these questions that certain objects become more or less symbolically prestigious ( BOURDIEU, 2011 ), a fact that seems to me to be especially relevant in the case that will be analyzed in this article.

What we have called the anthropology of education² is quite heterogeneous and is found in different degrees of development in different national contexts. Countries like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, United States, France, etc. have different histories and institutional arrangements around the formation of anthropological reflection on education, in such a way that we could hardly understand an anthropology of education that was not in the plural, thus speaking of anthropologies of education. Considering such aspects, the anthropology of education category will be utilized in this study, since I am currently interested, starting from anthropology, in reflecting on the educational reality without denying other possibilities of dialogues and interfaces.

Added to this is the fact that there is really a global north and south in terms of the geopolitics of knowledge, hence having hegemonic anthropologies and others peripheral, which are asymmetrically related ( RIBEIRO; ESCOBAR, 2012 ). Recurrently, we know a lot about the academic production of countries in the global north, such as the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, and little, or almost nothing, about what has been elaborated in Africa, Latin America, Asia, etc.

In this sense, the present work aims to contribute to the discussion on the anthropology of education in Latin America, starting from a particular case: Brazilian anthropology. It is recognized that events such as the Reunião de Antropologia do Mercosul ( Mercosul Anthropology Meeting ) and the Congresso Latino-Americano de Antropologia ( Latin American Anthropology Congress ) have led to a closer relationship between the various anthropologies produced in this geopolitical and cultural region, allowing the circulation of authors, theories, research agendas, etc. However, there is clearly still a deep reciprocal lack of knowledge about how certain themes have been debated in each national context.

There would be countless possibilities to analyze the issue of education in Brazilian anthropology either from the lines of research of graduate programs in anthropology ( OLIVEIRA, 2015 ) or even from the role of anthropologists in educational research with anthropological (OLIVEIRA; BÚRIGO; BOIN, 2016) or educational (OLIVEIRA, 2017a) programs. In this work, I propose to think about the anthropology of education in Brazil in a more recent period, focusing on the anthropological production in education disseminated in the Reuniões Brasileiras de Antropologia - RBA ( Brazilian Anthropology Meetings ) from the 2000s, mapping the activities specifically aimed at discussions developed at the interface between anthropology and education. Despite the methodological approach adopted, the fact that anthropological production does not circulate only through this academic-institutional space³ is not denied here. However, one must recognize the centrality and relevance that this Congress has in the disciplinary delimitation and symbolic hierarchy of research objects in Brazilian anthropology.

I will start from the analysis of the proceedings of the RBA available on the website of the Associação Brasileira de Antropologia - ABA ( Brazilian Association of Anthropology )⁴ , mapping the specific activities developed at the interface between anthropology and education, seeking to reflect on the place that the educational question occupies in this institutional space, the academic tensions, disputes, and hierarchies that are established in this context. For the reader to have a better understanding of the questions that I am bringing, I will make a brief contextualization about the anthropology of education in Brazil and then analyze education in the RBA. As will be explored later, the choice of meetings promoted by the ABA is due to the centrality that this space has in guiding the debate on anthropology, being one of the main spaces of academic acclaim in this field. In this manner, we are interested in a more specific way of analyzing how education has been debated in this particular space.

Some clues to a history of anthropology of education in Brazil

Carrying out a reflective exercise about the field itself has been a constant in anthropology so that there has been a continuous revisit in Brazil to the history and institutional challenges of this science ( RUBIM, 1996 ; TRAJANO FILHO; RIBEIRO, 2004 ; FELDMAN-BIANCO, 2013 ; SCOTT; CAMPOS; PEREIRA, 2014). However, the effort to understand the historical and institutional outlines of a possible anthropology of education in Brazil is still incipient, which may be due to a large extent, as we will see later, to the institutional fragmentation that characterizes this field.

For a better understanding of the tensions and schisms, I believe that it is interesting to briefly and broadly summarize some points referring to the history of anthropology in Brazil, seeking to elucidate how the educational question fits in this context⁵ .

The creation of the first social science courses in the 1930s is recurrently assumed as an institutional landmark in the history of anthropology in Brazil⁶ , which has been increasingly debated and problematized ( REESINK; CAMPOS, 2014 ), also recognizing the existence of anthropological research in a previous period, highlighting names such as Edgard Roquette-Pinto (1884-1954), Heloisa Alberto Torres (1895-1977), Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987) among others, but these researchers were, as a rule, self-taught in the field of anthropology⁷ .

In this sense, it is important to highlight that anthropology was not initially constituted as an autonomous career in Brazil, integrating undergraduate courses in social sciences at a time when the discipline division was much less marked than today, especially concerning the relationship between anthropology and sociology ( CORRÊA, 2013 ). It is from the social sciences courses that anthropological knowledge is made routine, with the creation of specific chairs such as anthropology, ethnography of Brazil; the defense of the thesis for Lecturer-Professor in the area; the granting of academic degrees in anthropology⁸ , etc.

Still concerning the institutional model that is being adopted in this period, it is important to remember that teacher training was closely linked to normal schools, therefore separated from the university structure. Even in the first higher education courses focused on teacher training, there was widespread dissemination of the model in which one should first obtain the bachelor’s degree and, subsequently, carry out complementary pedagogical training. This historical-institutional conjuncture within the scope of teacher training has some direct implications on the delimitation of the field we are analyzing here since it separates the proper training in the social sciences from training in the pedagogical science.

In any case, it is important to note that the anthropological categories circulated beyond the institutional space of the university. In some normal schools, there was even the chair of pedagogical anthropology⁹ . However, the dialogues produced in these spaces were different from those carried out at universities, since there was a greater emphasis on psychology and physical anthropology, as opposed to the emphasis on sociology and the social and cultural perspective, a model that came to prevail in Brazilian anthropology (OLIVEIRA, 2013a).

The years that follow are of increasing institutionalization of anthropology in Brazil, with the creation in 1941 of the Sociedade Brasileira de Antropologia e Etnologia ( Brazilian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology ), founded under the auspices of Arthur Ramos (1903-1949), but which had a short duration, being extinct in 1949. ABA had its first meeting held in 1953, at the National Museum, having been officially founded during its second meeting held in 1955, in Salvador¹⁰ , being currently the longest-standing scientific society in the field of Brazilian social sciences.

Also significant is the advent in 1955 of the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Educacionais - CBPE ( Brazilian Center for Educational Research ), idealized by Anísio Teixeira (1900-1971), whose regional centers started to operate in São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife, and Porto Alegre from the following year. In this proposal there was the idea that it would be possible to articulate the knowledge of the social sciences for the development of research to support the evolution of educational policies, having included into this center important anthropologists, such as Gilberto Freyre and Darcy Ribeiro (1922-1997).

An interesting piece of data that points to the relevance of this center for the development of social sciences in Brazil is that already at the II Reunião Brasileira de Antropologia ( II Brazilian Anthropology Meeting ), at which ABA was founded, it sent an official representation (CBPE/MEC) to participate in the event, formed by Charles Wagley, Bertram Hutchison, and Josildeth S. Gomes.

Although its activities ended in the 1970s without fully fulfilling its objectives, it is important to note that the center enabled the development of research relevant to the field of social sciences and education in this period, coming to edit between 1956 and 1959 the Educação & Ciências Sociais ( Education & Social Science ) journal for the dissemination of the results of such investigations.

It is from the 1960s, with the so-called University Reform, that what Cardoso de Oliveira (2003) called the bureaucratic period of Brazilian anthropology begins, with the advent of postgraduate studies in the model close to what we know today. The first master’s courses in anthropology created in Brazil were those at the National Museum (1968), State University of Campinas (1971), University of Brasília (1972), University of São Paulo (1972), Federal University of Pernambuco (1977) and Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (1979).

Another consequence of the University Reform was the advent of the Faculties of Education, which finally separated institutionally educational research from those developed by other human sciences. Based on the idea of autonomy of the scientific fields of Bourdieu (2004) , we can indicate that this is a decisive mark in the process of greater disciplinary delimitation between the social sciences (and anthropology in particular) and education. However, it is impossible to deny the interdisciplinary character of the educational field in Brazil, formed epistemologically from the contributions of several sciences, such as sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, etc.

This means that far from denying the existence of an anthropology of education within the Faculties of Education, it is observed in Brazil the organization of a dialogue between anthropology and education both with postgraduate programs in anthropology/social sciences and education, even though these are not always easy dialogues, with numerous tensions and disputes in place ( GUSMÃO, 2006 ). This also provides for a deep institutional fragmentation, placing agents engaged in this field in distinct positions, as well as the development of research agendas with differentiated preoccupations.

This brief itinerary outlined here seeks to demonstrate how anthropology and education became constituted as autonomous fields in Brazil, most of the time with only little dialogue between these areas, but never unexisting.

In Brazil, there was no development of experiences similar to what occurred in Mexico with the creation of the Departamento de Investigações Educativas - DIE ( Department of Educational Investigations ) of the Centro de Investigação e Estudos Avançados - CINVESTAV ( Center for Research and Advanced Studies ) of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional - IPN ( National Polytechnic Institute ) in the 1970s, or in Argentina with the Programa de Antropologia e Educação ( Anthropology and Education Program ), created in 1992 at the University of Buenos Aires. The closest to that was the experience of the CBPE, which failed to consolidate a research agenda at the interface between the social sciences and education and was short-lived. What characterizes the development of the anthropology of education in Brazil, therefore, is its institutional fragmentation not only within the anthropology programs, but also within the education and social sciences.

Is education something new at the Brazilian Anthropology Meetings?

As announced from the beginning, it is understood here that anthropological academic production, more specifically the anthropology of education, is not restricted to spaces institutionally linked to anthropology, through departments, graduate programs, and specific events in the area. However, it is necessary to recognize the relevance and centrality that such spaces end up occupying in the academic field so that the RBA ends up becoming one of the main spaces for the dissemination of anthropological research. Furthermore, ABA itself is one of the main agents in this field, whose actions directly reflect on the other agents engaged in the field of Brazilian anthropology.

Although I do not propose here to carry out a historical review of how the educational issue appeared in all meetings, it is interesting to draw attention to certain aspects that touch this issue, especially to the changes that are seen in Brazilian anthropology and the RBA.

Notably between the 1950s and the 2000s, profound transformations took place and “In the anthropology environment in Brazil, in the last 30 years, alterity has slipped in, territorial and ideologically, via a process dominated by the incorporation of new themes and expansion of the researched universe.” ( PEIRANO, 2006 , p. 53). Still according to Peirano (2006) , Brazilian anthropology emerges from radical alterity, in which the ethnological studies of indigenous groups represented the canonical model, to minimal alterity, researching themes that have long been considered sociological. The insertion of education in the Brazilian anthropology agenda seems to follow this trend, given the centrality that the debate on indigenous education yet has in this context (OLIVEIRA; BÚRIGO; BOIN, 2016). The RBA followed these changes and started to incorporate more and more new themes, often under the rubric of urban anthropology.

As already pointed out, postgraduate courses were also created in the meantime, professionalizing training in anthropology in Brazil, historically held in master’s and doctoral courses. However, in any case, there was also a significant expansion of new post-graduate courses in anthropology at the beginning of the 21st century, since, while in 2000 there were four programs that offered only a master’s degree and six that offered courses in master’s and doctoral degrees, in 2017 that number jumped to ten and eighteen, respectively. Added to this is the creation of the first degrees in anthropology in Brazil¹¹ , although initial training in social science courses predominates.

Furthermore, changes have also occurred in the educational field, with the expansion of access to training for indigenous and quilombola populations and the guarantee of the right to differentiated education. The advent of affirmative actions, mainly through the so-called racial quotas in public universities, is also a relevant milestone, principally because it involved the engagement of countless Brazilian anthropologists in its debate and implementation ( CARVALHO, 2005 ).

I want to argue with this that the analysis that will be carried out here turns to a period of concomitant expansion of anthropology and the educational system and that, therefore, impacted the development of an anthropology of education in Brazil. However, I also argue that the anthropological debate about the educational issue is not something new in the RBA and that it is full of tensions and disputes.

Already in the II RBA¹² , the meeting at which ABA is founded, some works dealt with this theme. According to the event’s program, the following works were presented in this interface between anthropology and education: Adaptações do folclore para uso escolar ( Adaptations of folklore for school use ) by Galvão Krébs (Secretariat of Education and Culture of Rio Grande do Sul)¹³ ; Um programa de ensino da cadeira de língua tupi ( A teaching program for the Tupi language chair ) by Darcy Ribeiro (University of Brazil and Indian Protection Service)¹⁴ ; Problemas de ensino em antropologia ( Teaching problems in anthropology ) by Egon Schaden (University of São Paulo)¹⁵ ; A antropologia nos cursos da Fundação Getúlio Vargas ( Anthropology in the courses of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation ) by Maria Alice Pessôa; Antropologia e educação popular ( Anthropology and popular education ) by Margarida Sinay Neves (Pro-Matre of Bahia). Although there are researchers linked to CBPE at the event, none of them presented research related to education, only investigations that touched broader problems of anthropology.

There is no denying that other issues related to indigenous ethnology, archeology, folklore, and acculturation problems predominated at that meeting. Nevertheless, I want to highlight that in a way the concerns about education and teaching have always been present in the RBA, more emphatically about the teaching of anthropology ( GROSSI, 2006 ; OLIVEIRA, 2017b), albeit in a peripheral way.

Education in the RBA since the 2000s

The period in which the analysis performed here is circumscribed ranges from the 22nd RBA (2000) to the 32nd RBA (2020). Although there is no total homogeneity regarding the terminology of academic activities, this analysis will focus on the symposia, as well as on the so-called Research Forums, which gave way after the 26th RBA for Research Groups, when the round tables also appeared.

These activities have different natures since the symposia are usually promoted by the ABA’s own board, especially through its scientific commissions, while the round tables arise from proposals prepared by the members of the association and there are, in both cases, one or more coordinators and a limited number of exhibitors, all doctors affiliated to the ABA. In the case of Research Forums and Work Groups, there are usually two coordinators, an activity proposed by ABA affiliates with a doctoral degree through a public call and, once the Forum or Group is approved, a new call for submission of papers is opened. These are the activities that have the largest number of studies, normally functioning during almost the entire event, and it is not necessary to be affiliated to ABA to present research, requiring only the minimum degree of master’s student or undergraduate student for oral or poster presentation, respectively.

Although the structure of the RBA does not provide for fixed groups, it is observed that many persist throughout the various editions, although eventually the coordinators are changed, or there are minor changes in the titles. In any case, concerning the issues that are the focus of this work, it is interesting to note that in all editions there was some activity focused on the discussion about anthropology and education through the most diverse approaches.

For a better understanding of the distribution of these activities, a demonstrative table follows, produced from the mapping of forums, groups, tables, and symposia related to education in the proceedings of the RBA (2000-2020):

Table 1
– Activities related to the theme of education in the RBA (2000-2020)

Year	Place of the event	Group/Forum	Symposium	Round table
2000	Brasília/Unb	Anthropology and Education	Anthropology, university, society
2002	Gramado	Differentiated Education (Coordinated communications)	Training of the Anthropologist	–
2004	Recife/UFPE	Anthropology and Education	–
2006	Goiânia/UFG	Anthropology and Education	–	–
2008	Porto Seguro	Contemporary Challenges for an Anthropology of Education: teaching, research and equality policies	Teaching anthropology in different national contexts;	Nation, Equality and Difference in 21stCentury Brazil - The Case of Basic Education.
2010	Belém/UFPA	Anthropology and education: between knowledge, practices and learning	–	Anthropology and education: an overview of teaching and research in Brazil
2012	São Paulo/ PUC-SP	Visual Anthropology: history, teaching and research perspectives	-	Anthropology and education: dilemmas, challenges and perspectives for training for diversity;
2014	–	Anthropology and Education: building dialogues and interfaces;	Teaching Anthropology: expanding frontiers in the 21stcentury	Anthropology, Ethnography and Education: debates around categories and experiences
2016	João Pessoa/ UFPB	Teaching and Learning Anthropology	Training policies and knowledge production: scenarios and challenges for anthropology and education	Ethnographies in education: challenges, limits and possibilities
2018	Brasília/Unb	Teaching and Learning Anthropology	Ethnographic Studies in Education	New universities, new campuses,new anthropologies: teaching, alterities and the expansion of higher education in Brazil
2020	Rio de Janeiro/UERJ	Dialogues at the frontiers: Education and the School as objects of research in Anthropology; Teaching and Learning Anthropology; University Extension: challenges and proposals for action and training in anthropology	Education in dark times (and beyond)	Teaching Biological/Physical Anthropology in Brazil: Challenges of the Present and Perspectives for the Future;

Source: Oliveira (2020).

With that, it is observed that there is a certain stability of the presence of this theme in the RBA, with moments when it is felt more or less evident. At the 2004 and 2006 meetings, there was only one type of activity related to the theme, in this case, a research forum entitled Antropologia e Educação ( Anthropology and Education ), whilst at the 2014 meeting there were two Work Groups, a round table, and a special symposium, while in 2020 there were three Work Groups, a round table, and a special symposium.

From the data presented we could observe the existence of a division into two large blocks in the discussions developed in the RBA: a) a more general debate on the interface between anthropology and education, which would include the debate on ethnographic research in educational contexts, indigenous school education, education and multiculturalism, etc.; b) another specifically aimed at teaching anthropology, considering both the teaching of anthropology in the training of anthropologists (at undergraduate and graduate levels), as well as the training of non-anthropologists. This division becomes more evident from the last two editions of the event since two distinct Work Groups are created for these themes.

It can also be indicated that, apparently, the discussions about the teaching of anthropology/anthropological training have been established throughout these meetings mainly with the special symposia. This issue is significant in that it demarcates issues related to tensions and disputes in the field since the symposia are activities normally proposed by ABA’s own board. Certainly, the expansion of higher education, with the consequent expansion of the work of anthropologists in this sector, as well as the advent of the first degrees in anthropology in Brazil and the exponential growth of graduate studies in recent decades, has made the debate about the teaching of anthropology gain more visibility within ABA, as can also be seen from publications organized by this institution (GROSSI; RIAL; TASSINARI, 2006; TAVARES; GUEDES; CARUSO, 2010). Another significant indication is the creation in 2006 of the Ensino de Antropologia ( Teaching of Anthropology ) Commission among ABA’s scientific committees, later transformed into an Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia ( Education, Science and Technology ) commission.

I understand, therefore, that even mobilizing fewer researchers, the discussions regarding the teaching of anthropology have occupied a privileged space in the RBA due to a large extent to the relevance that this topic started to assume, approaching the academic and political concerns of ABA. There is also a clear divide between the agents that mobilize this field, since in the discussions related to the teaching of anthropology there is a predominant presence of researchers linked to departments, courses, and graduate programs in anthropology/social sciences, while the broader discussions involving anthropological research in school spaces tend to present greater participation of researchers linked to the Faculties of Education.

This division can also be understood from the very insertion of these different agents in the educational field and from how the different spaces of institutionalization of the interface between anthropology and education have their own research agendas. This is evident when we compare the anthropologists who work in anthropology programs researching education (OLIVEIRA; BÚRIGO; BOIN, 2016), and those who are inserted in education programs (OLIVEIRA, 2017a), because, despite the existing convergences, there is a sensibly distinct formulation of academic trajectories and insertions in the field.

On the other hand, the broader discussions on anthropology and education, despite also finding spaces with symposia and round tables, have grown mainly from the Research Forums/Work Groups. Concerning this issue, there are significant questions posed by Neusa Gusmão, professor at the Faculty of Education at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), who played a fundamental role in opening and maintaining this space in the RBA and who has been present in almost all the activities mentioned in the table above, whether as coordinator, exhibitor or debater:

The debate remains open and what is presented here from the forums and GTs [Work Groups] from 2000 to 2008 corroborates the statement by Lopes (2001, p. 9): “in Brazil, anthropological studies on education are rare. However, the participation of anthropologists in educational projects involving different sectors of the population is numerous and significant”. If indigenous education has historically been the most consolidated as an area of study in terms of an Anthropology of Education, it can be seen from the multiple themes and approaches, from projects, research, and teaching experiences, that the question remains posed beyond the indigenous issue. However, efforts to critically think about the relationship between anthropology and education are still small due to how anthropological science is appropriated by other fields and because of a humanism that, at times, dulls the vision and generates a trivialization of the anthropological work, of its central concepts and respective theoretical supports. ( GUSMÃO, 2009 , p. 42).

In the researcher’s assessment, we can see that there is an interpretation that the anthropology of education is still a field in formation in Brazil, a perspective that I share with her. However, I think again here about the disputes existing in the academic field, because I believe that despite the broader discussion about anthropology and education bringing together a greater number of researchers, in my perception this discussion ends up occupying a more peripheral place in the RBA, a perception which would be justified by some points: a) the institutional fragmentation of researchers who dedicate themselves to this theme is greater than among those who dedicate themselves to teaching anthropology, the former being more strongly linked to the Faculties of Education, as can be seen, because none of the Forum or Group on this theme has been coordinated by a researcher linked to a Postgraduate Program in Anthropology/Social Sciences, relying more incisively on the leadership of anthropologists linked to Faculties of Education16; b) by turning to a much broader discussion, this theme ends up encompassing not only discussions produced exclusively by anthropologists, although the production of anthropological knowledge is not carried out only by anthropologists in the strict sense, and the production in the field of anthropology of education has a deeply interdisciplinary mark ( DAUSTER, 2015 ).

What I want to draw attention to here is the fact that not only issues related to education occupy a lower place on the agenda of Brazilian anthropology - despite its recent advances - but there are also hierarchies in this field, with a period in which there is a tendency to establish a certain privilege about the discussion on teaching, understood especially from the idea of anthropological formation. This scenario is materialized in the context of the expansion of undergraduate and graduate courses in anthropology, whose debate has been led almost exclusively by researchers linked institutionally to anthropology/social sciences departments, courses, and programs. Returning to the proceedings of the II RBA, on which ABA was founded, it is noteworthy that in its organization a section on teaching anthropology is pointed out, but none on the anthropology of education .

I do not deny that there is also an increase in the debate around anthropological research in educational spaces, giving priority to indigenous education, which must be understood in the context of the expansion of access to education systems by populations that historically have been an object of reflection on the part of Brazilian anthropology, as already argued. Resuming Gusmão’s analysis (2009, p. 40):

Significantly, the target populations for training, research, and intervention are still the so-called minorities represented by blacks, indigenous people, and other poor and peripheral segments, such as peasants, women, and people with special needs, but also and, above all, the higher education student. Issues of color, race, and ethnicity, and concepts of identity, ethnic identity, culture, sociability, and citizenship are recurrent. There are also notions related to multiculturality, interculturality, education, and interdisciplinarity. The set thus puts at stake the theoretical and methodological convergence/divergence between anthropology and education as a field yet to be explored and requiring efforts for critical reflection.

It is possible to perceive an internal tension that occurs in the midst of the demands resulting, on the one hand, from the institutional dilemmas of Brazilian anthropology, from which emerges a reflection on the teaching of this science, on the other, from the social demands about which anthropologists have been urged to position themselves. These are different demands and have different weights in the academic field, especially if we consider the place of speech of the agents involved, some of them institutionally linked to anthropology and others to education.

It can be seen from this balance that there is a division that tends to connect researchers linked to the Faculties of Education to research involving basic education and non-school educational spaces, and tends to connect those linked to departments and anthropology/social sciences courses to studies involving higher education and the training of anthropologists, which unfolds in an apparent dichotomy between a specific discussion about the teaching of anthropology and a broader one about an anthropology of education.

The analysis undertaken here, far from seeking to exhaust the theme, aims to shed light on the dilemmas that are posed in the construction of an anthropology of education in Brazil, which has found in the RBA an important institutional space for articulation, in which tensions and hierarchies are transparent.

Final considerations

An analysis of the anthropology of education in Brazil can certainly be carried out based on several approaches, as I emphasized at the beginning of this article, but the approach adopted here allows us to think about the issue from one of the main spaces for discussion of Brazilian anthropology, thus capturing the movements in this field in a more recent period.

The continuity of activities, practically uninterrupted in the analyzed period, points to the constitution of a community of researchers that has been solidifying over the years. It is also evident the presence of some consolidated leaders in this field, who have been acting at the interface between anthropology and education at least since the 1980s and 1990s, mainly from the Faculties of Education; however, new leaderships have emerged, constantly working in partnership with these agents already established in the field.

The rift observed between issues related to teaching anthropology, and those related to an anthropological reflection on education in a broader way reflects the disputes and tensions existing in Brazilian anthropology itself, more particularly in the anthropology of education. There are still other tensions and disputes, such as concerning the use of ethnography in educational research (VALENTE, 1996; OLIVEIRA, 2013b), which also unfold, to some degree, in institutional disputes.

What is relevant to point out from the issues raised here is that they converge in the process of consolidating the field of anthropology of education in Brazil, which, like any field, is marked by disputes. The field of anthropology of education in Brazil has been forming, albeit from the margins, but it remains pulsating and expanding.

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• GOMES, Ana Maria R.; GOMES, Nilma Lino. Anthropology and education in Brazil: possible pathways”. In: ANDERSON-LEVITT, Kathryn M. (org.). Anthropologies of education: a global guide to ethnographic studies of learning and schooling. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011. p. 111-130.
• GROSSI, Miriam. Ensino de antropologia: uma “velha” história na ABA. In: GROSSI, Miriam; RIAL, Carmen; TASSINARI, Antonella (org.). Ensino de antropologia no Brasil: formação, práticas disciplinares e além-fronteiras. Florianópolis: Nova Letra, 2006. p. 7-11.
• GROSSI, Miriam Pillar; RIAL, Carmen; TASSINARI, Antonella (org.). Ensino de antropologia no Brasil: formação, práticas disciplinares e além-fronteiras. Florianópolis: Nova Letra, 2006.
• GUSMÃO, Neusa Maria. Antropologia e educação: história e trajetos / Faculdade de Educação – Unicamp. In: GROSSI, Miriam Pillar; RIAL, Carmen; TASSINARI, Antonella (org.). Ensino de antropologia no Brasil: formação, práticas disciplinares e além-fronteiras. Florianópolis: Nova Letra, 2006. p. 299-331.
• GUSMÃO, Neusa Maria. Entrelugares: antropologia e educação no Brasil. Educação, Santa Maria, v. 34, n. 1, p. 29-46, 2009.
• OLIVEIRA, Amurabi. O lugar da antropologia na formação docente: um olhar a partir das Escolas Normais, Pro-Posições, Campinas, v. 24, n. 2, p. 27-40, 2013a.
• OLIVEIRA, Amurabi. Por que etnografia no sentido estrito e não estudos do tipo etnográfico em educação? Revista Faeeba, Salvador, v. 22, n. 40, p. 69-82, 2013b.
• OLIVEIRA, Amurabi. Sobre o lugar da educação na antropologia brasileira. Temas em Educação, João Pessoa, v. 24, n. 1, p. 40-50, 2015.
• OLIVEIRA, Amurabi. Uma antropologia fora do lugar? Um olhar sobre os antropólogos na educação. Horizontes Antropológicos, Porto Alegre, v. 23, n. 49, p. 233-253, 2017a.
• OLIVEIRA, Amurabi. Um balanço da discussão sobre ensino na Associação Brasileira de Antropologia. Cadernos da Abecs, Rio de Janeiro, v. 1, n. 1, p. 80-91, 2017b.
• OLIVEIRA, Amurabi; BÚRIGO, Beatriz; BOIN, Felipe. A antropologia, os antropólogos e a educação no Brasil. Revista Anthropológicas, Recife, v. 27, n. 2, p. 21-44, 2016.
• OLIVEIRA, Roberto Cardoso. Sobre o pensamento antropológico. Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 2003.
• PEIRANO, Mariza. A teoria vivida: e outros ensaios de antropologia. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2006.
• PEIRANO, Mariza. The anthropology of anthropology: the Brazilian case. 1981. (Ph.D. Dissertation in Anthropology) – Harvard University, Harvard, 1981.
• REESINK, Mísia; CAMPOS, Roberta. A geopolítica da antropologia no Brasil: ou como a província vem se submetendo ao Leito de Procusto. In: SCOTT, Parry; CAMPOS, Roberta Bivar; PEREIRA, Fabiana (org.). Rumos da antropologia no Brasil e no mundo: geopolíticas disciplinares. Recife: UFEPE: ABA, 2014. p. 55-81.
• RIBEIRO, Gustavo Lins. Antropologias mundiais: cosmopolíticas, poder e teoria em antropologia. Série Antropologia, Brasília, DF, n. 379, p. 1-16, 2005.
• RIBEIRO, Gustavo Lins; ESCOBAR, Arturo. Transformações disciplinares em sistemas de poder. In: RIBEIRO, Gustavo Lins; ESCOBAR, Arturo (org.). Antropologias mundiais: transformações da disciplina em sistemas de poder. Brasília, DF: UNB, 2012. p. 15-50.
• RUBIM, Christina. Antropólogos brasileiros e a antropologia no Brasil: a era da pós-graduação. 1996. Tese (Doutorado em Ciências Sociais)- Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 1996.
• SCOTT, Parry; CAMPOS, Roberta Bivar; PEREIRA, Fabiana (org.). Rumos da antropologia no Brasil e no mundo: geopolíticas disciplinares. Recife: UFPE: ABA, 2014.
• TAVARES, Fátima; GUEDES, Simoni Lahud; CARUSO, Carlos (org.). Experiências de ensino e prática em antropologia no Brasil. Brasília, DF; Ícone, 2010.
• TRAJANO FILHO, Wilson; RIBEIRO, Gustavo Lins (org.). O campo da antropologia no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa Livraria: ABA, 2004. p. 39-68.

• 2
  - Although this nomenclature is recurrent, it does not mean that it is accepted without question, since other perspectives that defend a more interdisciplinary perspective have opted for the term “anthropology and education” ( DAUSTER, 2015 ). My point of view is that there is a wide interface established between anthropology and education, so that the “anthropology of education”, that is, the development of an anthropological reflection on education, is a part of it.
• 3
  - In Brazil, the debates promoted by the Meetings of the National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Social Sciences (Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Ciências Sociais - ANPOCS) and the National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Education (Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Educação - ANPED) are also relevant to this theme, in which the debate developed at the interface between anthropology and education ( GOMES; GOMES, 2011 ). However, such events have a more interdisciplinary character, with no specific institutional spaces for this discussion.
• 4
  - Proceedings made available at the link: http://www.portal.abant.org.br/index.php/45-anais/70-anais .
• 5
  - Due to the focus and scope of this work, I will not carry out a detailed analysis of the history of anthropology. For a better understanding of the topic, see Peirano (1981) and Corrêa (2013) .
• 6
  - The first courses created were those of the Free School of Sociology and Politics of São Paulo (1933), University of São Paulo (1934), University of the Federal District (1935), Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters of Paraná (1938) and Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters of Bahia (1940).
• 7
  - To some extent Gilberto Freyre is an exception to the rule, as he carried out postgraduate studies (master’s degrees) at Columbia University in the 1920s in Social History, however, according to documentation consulted at the Gilberto Freyre Foundation, he took two courses in the Department of Anthropology and two others in Sociology. Besides, the impact of Franz Boas (1858-1942) on his work is widely known.
• 8
  - The defenses of the thesis for Lecturer-Professor, as well as the granting of university degrees from the 1940s, established itself in an academic model different from what we have today since they do not presuppose the realization of a cycle of studies through courses at the master’s/doctoral level, focusing mainly on the tutorial research regime.
• 9
  - A landmark for this debate is the creation in 1914 of the Pedagogical Psychology and Anthropology Office of Escola Normal da Praça, in São Paulo, by Ugo Pizzoli (1863-1934), who had a medical background.
• 10
  - In any case, a Brazilian meeting on Anthropology had already been planned since the beginning of 1948, when the Minister of Education and Health appointed, through a decree dated February 20 of that year, a commission made up of Álvaro Fróes da Fonseca, Edgard Roquette Pinto, Arthur Ramos, and Heloisa Alberto Torres, to plan the “First Brazilian Congress of Anthropology”.
• 11
  - There are currently 12 undergraduate courses in Anthropology in operation at the Federal University of Amazonas, Federal Fluminense University, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Federal University of Paraíba, Federal University of Pelotas, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Federal University of Roraima, Federal University of São Francisco Valley, Federal University of Latin American Integration, University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (on the campus of Redenção - CE), Federal University of Western Pará.
• 12
  - The ABA website does not provide online the I RBA proceedings and, in any case, it is from the II that ABA comes into existence as a scientific institution.
• 13
  - He also presented the study Curso experimental de danças folclóricas no R. G. do Sul (Experimental folk dance course in R. G. do Sul) .
• 14
  - He also presented the conference Uirá vai ao encontro de Maíra (as experiências de um índio Urubu que sai à procura de Deus) (Uirá goes to meet Maíra (the experiences of a Urubu indian who goes in search of God)) and the work Políticas indigenistas do Serviço de Proteção ao Índio (Indigenous policies of the Indian Protection Service) .
• 15
  - This activity indicates the coordination of Egon Schaden, who also presented the conference “Estudos de aculturação no Brasil” (Acculturation studies in Brazil), and the work “Karl Von den Stein e a etnografia brasileira” (Karl Von den Stein and the Brazilian ethnography) . Egon Schaden was also one of the organizers of this meeting.
• 16
  - In the specific case of researcher Neusa MM de Gusmão - who coordinated activities at the interface between anthropology and education during several editions of the RBA - she was institutionally linked to the Department of Social Sciences in Education at the Faculty of Education, also acting concurrently in the Graduate Program in Social Sciences at UNICAMP.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  09 June 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  19 May 2019
• Accepted
  11 Sept 2019