The teacher as body-subject: na analysis of press statements in Imperial Brazil

Abstract

Situated at the intersection of the history of education and discourse studies, the research suspends and interrogates statements about the teacher, published in documents, magazines, and widely circulated newspapers of the Brazilian Imperial press. This period, marked by intense political, social, and cultural transformations, had a significant impact on the organization of the educational system and teacher training. It represents a historical moment that hosted the first educational laws and the initial tensions between the teaching profession and the State. Within this historical context and under the aegis of an archaeogenealogical perspective, the study is dedicated to mapping and analyzing discourses surrounding the teacher as a body-subject. The methodological path unfolded in three stages: the first involved surveying discursive materiality in magazines and newspapers from the Brazilian Digital Newspaper Archive, using the descriptor “teacher”; the second stage defined the corpus of statements, selecting as the locus of analysis publications that revolved around the institutionalization of primary instruction; and the final stage monumentalizes the discursive findings and engages in an analytical essay, operating with concepts of discursive formation and the knowledge-power relation. The analysis of the statements revealed discursive regularities that activate discourses of devaluation of teaching—both as a profession and as a workspace—and a symbolic occupation of the teacher body-subject, anchored in juridical domains and pastoral power.