A different and delicate look at indigenous women in the colonial period: an essay towards inclusive teaching

Abstract

The following essay aims to analyze the different daily lives of indigenous women during the colonial period and how they were narrated by history in the wrong way. Based on a synthesis of different authors such as Michelle Perrot, Mary del Priore, Joan Scott, Pierre Bourdieu's concept of male domination and symbolic violence and Walter Benjamin's teaching against the grain, we seek to problematize how the teaching of indigenous history in classrooms can end up silencing, sexualizing and objectifying women, contributing to a narrative that only gives voice to their Eurocentric vision, in addition to excluding several of their actions that were important for the development of colonial society. With this in mind, the main objective is to break the perception that these women were just passive figures in history, exemplifying and naming them, like Damiana da Cunha, for example, and starting a discussion on how to give a voice to indigenous women in the classroom. classes through alternative methodologies, modifying the narrative that sexualizes them, diminishes them and contributes to a history of winners, thus making them increasingly present in teaching and gaining the role that has always been theirs, that of important historical figures present in colonial society.