Um olhar para a diversidade na educação superior: as (in)visibilidades das temáticas de gênero e sexualidade na UFPA - Campus Abaetetuba/PA

Abstract

This master’s thesis is justified by the need to render visible approaches regarding themes of gender diversity and sexuality within universities. The research seeks to answer to the following question: how do students view being LGBTQIA+ at the Federal University of Pará, Abaetetuba Campus, and how does the university promote or not visibility on the theme of sexual diversity and gender in its undergraduate courses? Also, how does it impact LGBTQIA+ students’ lives? To answer this question, the main objective is: listening to undergraduate students at the Federal University of Pará, Abaetetuba Campus, who identify as LGBTQIA+ people, about what it means to be LGBTQIA+ within the university, discussing the presence of absence of education processes related to themes of sexual and gender diversity, as well as assessing whether such processes make visible or not how they belong to those spaces, and which impacts are felt in their lives because of that. Thus, the specific objectives are: a) Identifying students’ perceptions about what it means to acknowledge themselves as LGBTQIA+ people at the Federal University of Pará, Abaetetuba Campus; b) Verify if there are education processes at the university to incentivize a positive visibility regarding identity, interactions, and relationships with those environments; and c) Understand how making visible themes of sexual and gender diversity at the university, or its absence, impacts the lives of LGBTQIA+ people enrolled at the courses, and how students view themselves in this place. The methodology adopted was of qualitative nature, being descriptive/explanatory, method which is based on a dialectical concept, referring to a theoretical framework of historical materialism. The data collection tool was group intensive direct observation, in conjunction with a semi-structured interview carried out through a focus group. The research had as informants three undergraduate students from the Federal University of Pará, Abaetetuba Campus, who are also LGBTQIA+ people. The results point to the erasure of identities, sexualities, bodies, and voices represented by the LGBTQIA+, in their fights for resistance, respect, visibility, dignity, freedom to live, and the guarantee of human rights acquired legally. It is also noteworthy that this research field was and will remain a great challenge for any researcher, as it refers to lives, stories, memories, pain, suffering, violence, but also allows one to visualize the essence of love, dignity, living, being happy, freedom, and most importantly it speaks of lives that matter to creating a more just society, equal in human diversity. Although there are hurdles in those processes, one may observe that the perceptions held by those subjects indicate that education may become a means of accessing and building perspectives of a promising future, and of a professional, academic, social, and personal life project.