EPISTEMOLOGIES OF THE JOURNEY: TEACHER TRAINING AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN (AUTO)BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES FROM SERTÃO CEARENSE

Abstract

This article examines, through a qualitative and (auto)biographical perspective, the formative experience of a subject born in the hinterlands of Ceará, whose educational trajectory was shaped by structural absence, geographic displacement, youth labor and the constant negotiation of survival. Experience is adopted as the central epistemological axis, revealing how multigrade schooling, exhausting workdays, nighttime study and urban exile configure embodied pedagogies rooted in resistance, dignity and the pursuit of knowledge. The discussion engages Freire (2019), Santos (2022), Larrosa (2014), Josso (2010), Nóvoa (2017) and Passeggi (2021) to argue that teacher education does not emerge solely from academic institutions; it is forged in peripheral territories, class tensions and the lived contradictions that shape subjectivity. The analysis demonstrates that, once narrated, such experiences become a legitimate source of knowledge and a political gesture aligned with the epistemologies of the South. It concludes that acknowledging these trajectories expands the meaning of teacher education and reimagines public schooling as a project committed to justice, belonging and social emancipation.