Infância e experiência à luz de Walter Benjamin : narrativas infantis sobre visitas a um museu de ciências

Abstract

Since the beginning of modernity, individuals have been thrown into a process of alienation and growing individualism, which reflects on interpersonal relationships as well as on human's perception. Contemporaneity, being the continuation on modernity, is characterized by the accelerated profusion of information that is both quick and easy to assimilate and verify, being potentially consumed without reflection or involvement of the subject who accesses it, which drastically reduces the possibilities of having experiences. In this context, considering science museums as places where culture is (re)produced, the present study aimed to analyze, from the point of view of experience, possible contributions of visiting a science museum for children aged between four and six years, based on their narratives. During childhood, individuals still tend to question the meanings given to things from the modern perspective of production and progress, coming up with their own meanings to reality. The theoretical part of this research starts discussing the understanding of experience, childhood, mimesis and language of Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, Vygotsky and their commentators. Considering the potential of culture to provide opportunities for formative, critical and emancipatory experiences, we have analyzed narratives given by children after visiting an interactive science and technology museum. Therefore, we intended to discuss causes and consequences of the impoverishment of experience in contemporary times, as well as possible contributions to the rescue of the possibility of experience from childhood.