The rhizomatic and intersectional approach to autobiographical narratives of female college students

Abstract

The aim of this article was to describe and analyze, through the autobiographies of female college students, enrolled in the courses of Nursing and Pedagogy, the phenomena involving intersectionality and the concept of rhizome, between poverty, ethnicity, gender, processes of overcoming, social mobility, and research as a biographical factor. The admission of the college students was through the “vestibular” (college admission exam) without any social or ethnic-racial quotas. Based on the theoretical-methodological principle of biography and the project proposed by Cristine Delory-Momberger and Maria da Conceição Passeggi, we found that social mobility was forged through personal, family, social capital and cultural resilience. The rhizomatic and intersectional approach in the autobiographical narratives of a female college students from the course of Pedagogy was observed because she showed a level of critical reflection on ethnic self-identification, social class and gender, during the preparation of her undergraduate monograph and as a member of the “Group of Autobiographical Studies and Research”, concluding the relevance of reflective university researchers of their each personal life history. This was not evident in the (auto)biographical narrative of the undergraduate nursing student.