Memory, orality, and history

some reflections

Abstract

This article, which addresses some refl ections 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 experiences 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.