Memory, orality, and history: some reflections

Autores: Luciana Nascimento dos Santos

ABSTRACT

This article, which addresses some reflections about memory, orality, and history, is a clipping of the master’s research

entitled Black Woman teacher between chrysalis and hummingbird: the invisible and the revealed, the silence and the

writing of one another, in which a study was carried out on the life trajectory of a black teacher, of the municipal school

system of Feira de Santana-BA, who died in the classroom. The aim of this research was to investigate about the ex-

periences of prejudice and racial discrimination experienced by this school and its impacts on the trajectory of life and

death of the teacher. The investigation was based on the following problematizing questions: How was the life story

of the black woman who became a teacher? What are the implications of racism, prejudice, and discrimination for the

life of the teacher, as well as for the process of morbidity and mortality of black women? Considering the nature of the

investigation, in this qualitative study, the methodological path was instantiated in the approach of life histories. In this

study, ethnic-racial, gender, teaching work and health issues of the black population were emphasized. Regarding the

aspects discussed here, we present refl ections about memory, orality, and history, based on the foundations of Benjamin

(2005), Bom Meihy (2005), (Halbwachs (1990), Hampaté Ba (1982) and Le Goff (2003), (1994). In this context, the

theoretical approach on history establishes interlocution with memory, the place of the records of the lived, and orality

as the narrative device of experience. Individual memory and collective memory are intertwined in a continuous stream

of reciprocal exchanges.

Keywords: memory; orality; history.