Identity, sexuality and ancestry

a reading of the cordel poem “Iracema Tabajara”, by Auritha Tabajara

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to read the cordel poem “Iracema tabajara”, by the indigenous poet Auritha Tabajara, from an intercultural and pedagogical perspective, as she approaches the identity value of her ancestry, sexuality and Indianness from the perspective of difference. In its critical legibility, the poem deconstructs the subalternized image of the Brazilian indigenous woman that has crystallized in Indianist works, removing her from her subjection, invisibility and silencing, and then restoring her through her struggle, her song and her memory, from the perspective of a contemporary and intercultural episteme that is enunciated through the poetic. In this work, we will engage with the thinking of authors such as Walter Mignolo (2017, 2020), Daniel Munduruku (2012), Giorgio Agamben (2009) and Catherine Walsh (2009), in order to produce a critical substrate of literary, political and pedagogical relevance, focusing on reading strategies that can stimulate the experience of these texts in the classroom.