THE PRESENCE IN INDIGENOUS STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A STRATEGY OF AFFIRMING IDENTITIES

Abstract

In the first fifteen years of the 21st century, the democratization of access to higher education occurred, in part, through policies to promote greater inclusion of non-hegemonic subjects, especially indigenous people. This paper aims to show how indigenous students have turned the university setting into a space in which to affirm their identities. Interviews were carried out with indigenous students attending different teaching courses at a university in Campo Grande, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The analysis showed that indigenous university students negotiate, attribute new meanings to and translate knowledges by interculturalizing them, in order to use the university as a strategy to affirm their identities.