Letramento literário e experiências socioculturais: memórias e narrativas compartilhadas entre alunas da universidade aberta à terceira idade

Abstract

Based on the assumption that experience, memory and identity are interconnected, composing human narratives, and that we are narrative beings by nature, maintaining constant contact with narratives that permeate our existence, this research sought to understand how sociocultural experiences involving the most diverse artistic expressions can have influence on the constitution of an individual's identity throughout his/her life history, configuring themselves as a natural process of literary literacy based on their experiences. For this purpose, it was defined as research subjects a group of elderly people who participate in a university extension project. The selection of this third age group, active and participating in artistic, recreational, physical and cognitive activities, aimed to know and understand the importance of sociocultural experiences throughout their trajectories, with emphasis on their current stage of life, the old age. Thus, this study investigated the process of literary literacy through symbolic sociocultural experiences among participants in the extension project Campus X – Education – Life – Third Age (CEVITI), developed in the Department of Education (Campus X), which is part of the program Third Age Open University (UATI), at the State University of Bahia (UNEB), in the city of Teixeira de Freitas. With this aim, the research analyzed the relationship between sociocultural experiences, cultural repertoire generated through these experiences, as well as subjective and intersubjective aspects involved in the literary literacy process of elderly women participating in the UATI/CEVITI (UNEB) extension project. This is qualitative research from an ethnographic perspective combined with an action research strategy. The data collection phase took place between March and August 2022 and was divided into three stages. During this time period, initial interviews, focus group meetings and final interviews were carried out. The concept of literary literacy which underpins this study understands literacy as a social practice that is not restricted to the school environment. From this perspective, each person would form a cultural repertoire throughout their life through their artistic-cultural experiences. Thus, such a repertoire would encompass all narrative genres of a fictional and poetic nature as literary ones. For data analysis, the artistic-cultural experiences of the research subjects were divided between memories of experiences from childhood and youth, and memories of experiences lived in old age in the UATI/CEVITI extension project. The results revealed that, in childhood and youth, the participants had experiences predominantly of an oral and collective nature, linked to the family environment and friendship circles. Their memories of these experiences express feelings of joy, belonging and nostalgia, and in their cultural repertoires there are still many memories of stories, songs, games and commemorative dates. The sociocultural experiences lived in the extension project point to the integrative, renewing and inclusive nature of these activities in old age. Through these new experiences lived collectively, the women who participated in the project create new social references that help them to remain physically and intellectually active, as well as to maintain psycho-emotional balance in old age.