Dialogue of the Deaf

This article is a contribution to a debate that has been going on for years in Brazil but has recently gained increased relevance with return of elections and possibility of progressive groups' assuming national, state, or municipal office. The debate is about popular education and knowledge and, ultimately, about democracy. The major premise is that poor-uneducated and apparently unpoliticized and often referred to as the masses-develop organized systems of thought, reflect about society in which they live, and, as a result, have distinct views of reality. Most popular education work and activities of labor unions, neighborhood organizations, and progressive political parties such as Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' party-PT) involve interaction between poor people with little formal education and professionals, intellectuals, and militants who frequently have university training. Notwithstanding their good intentions, these mediators find it very difficult to accept idea that their working-class counterparts really have something substantial to contribute to debate. Their difficulty in understanding what members of subaltern classes' are saying is due more to their attitudes-that is, to their way of looking at these sectors of society-than to any technical problem. It is a difficulty in accepting fact that these poor, humble residents of slums are capable of producing knowledge-of organizing and systematizing their thoughts and thus producing interpretations that may contribute greatly to way in which middle-class professionals evaluate society. Part of problem of comprehension originates in mediators' failure to understand who is speaking. The working classes are made up of various groups, and understanding them requires understanding their cultural backgrounds, their living conditions, and relation of these two aspects to

Linguistics · Political science · Sociology · Philosophy · Political theory and Gramsci · Psychology

• Perceptions and Uses of Public and Private Health Care in a Brazilian Favela

  Open Access•Débora Castiglione, Gina S Lovasi et al.•Qualitative Health Research•2018

  Add to list