Questioning the irreducible: photodenunciation as a mechanism for critical reading of the world

Abstract

The present study aims to evaluate the participants critical stance, based on practices of critical literacy and decoloniality, through pedagogical workshops with the photodenunciation genre. The data consists of interviews conducted with a group of students and excerpts of textual productions generated from photographic records. Data collection took place in a 3rd year high school class, at a public school located in the city of Palmeira dos Índios, Alagoas. The problem addressed concerns basic sanitation in the location adjacent to the school, inadequate waste disposal and the impact on the community's quality of life, considering that many of the research participants live in this area. To this end, we adopted the precepts of the qualitative approach, under the theoretical framework of decoloniality (Walsh, 2013; Queiroz et al., 2019; Cusicanqui, 2010) and critical literacy (Moreira Junior, 2020; Bezerra, 2019; Meniconi, 2021). The results show that the use of the photodenunciation genre stimulated the students' critical stance, enabling a change of perspective, the cultivation of empathy, the search for social justice and the understanding of the rights and duties of each citizen, among other factors that trigger a practice transformative.