“A CIÊNCIA SE FAZ COM HISTÓRIA”: Trajetórias de mulheres pretas doutoras em Química no Maranhão

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the trajectories of the first Black women from Maranhão to earn doctoral degrees in Chemistry, with the aim of understanding their contributions to teacher education and the meanings attributed to teaching in their experiences. The study is delimited to the context of Maranhão and focuses, through an intersectional lens, on the markers of gender, race, and class, considering the historical and social crossings that shaped these women’s paths in science. The relevance of the research lies in giving visibility to knowledges, practices, and forms of resistance that are often silenced in academia, challenging the hegemonic logic of scientific knowledge production. The theoretical framework brings together Black feminist studies (such as those of Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, Sueli Carneiro, and Lélia Gonzalez), decolonial perspectives (such as Frantz Fanon, Aníbal Quijano, Maria Lugones, and Catherine Walsh), and the theory of intersectionality proposed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Carla Akotirene, and Sirma Bilge. The methodology is qualitative, phenomenologically oriented (Bicudo), based on life history narratives and Discursive Textual Analysis (DTA), and involved interviews with two Black women professors holding doctoral degrees in Chemistry. The analysis of the interviews generated five categories: (1) Origins, childhood, and educational pathways, highlighting experiences marked by material deprivation and aesthetic racism, but also by the valorization of education as a possibility for change; (2) Academic training and institutional resistance, revealing the struggles against racial, linguistic, and structural barriers in higher education and graduate studies; (3) Being a Black woman in science: (in)visibility, mistrust, and assertion, denouncing the estrangement caused by Black presence in science and emphasizing processes of identity affirmation; (4) Pedagogical practices and commitment to social transformation, showing how these professors teach with care, empathy, and social responsibility, re-signifying Chemistry education; (5) Legacies, subjectivities, and (re)inventions, addressing motherhood, illness, art, and affective resistance as intimate dimensions of teaching experience. The results highlight the centrality of teaching as a political practice and a space of resistance, unveiling knowledges that challenge the coloniality of knowledge, power, and being. The participants’ narratives point to an ethical commitment to transforming education and affirming their Black identities, inscribing their existences as acts of rewriting history and as inspiration for future generations. In this way, their trajectories constitute practices of epistemic insurgency, proposing new ways of thinking and teaching science from subalternized, yet powerful, standpoints.