National Meeting of Indigenous Students in Brazil: shared reflections

Abstract

This text is a critical review of the first four editions of the National Meeting of Indigenous Students (ENEI), an event that occurs annually in Brazil since 2013. The review evidences, through the description and analysis of the Meetings, as well as the experience of participation of the authors , the challenges of the intercultural relationship between universities and Amerindian groups, as a result of the growing presence of these groups in public higher education institutions due to the implementation of affirmative action policies. From the record of participant observation and documentary research in the reports of the meetings, we present a shared reflection that evidences the ENEI as a space for re-existence of Amerindian collectives. While facing the manifestations of coloniality in the conventional universities, they are organized through meetings that are self-managed by the indigenous university students themselves, who, in the presence of their leaders, provide for the strengthening of personal and collective trajectories and the expansion of networks of political articulation. We consider that the disruptive presence of these people in the university can repopulate this space with knowledge and other looks, asking about the hegemonic model that founds and maintains it, generating transformations.