Reconfigurations of an academic path in times of a pandemic. The future is today

o futuro é hoje

Abstract

In March 2020 we were surprised by a pandemic that quickly spread across the world and struggled with bewildered policies from governments in different countries. Scientists, politicians and denialists have confused them with their inaction or divergence in action. For me, the hope of an experience at the University of Maranhão animated my teaching, research and extension activities and the illusion that the pandemic would be brought under control quickly. Returning to Portugal in an emergency situation, at the beginning of April I was faced with the affective, emotional, social, academic and professional void and with the history of a great uncle who, migrating to Rio Grande do Sul, would become a victim of the Spanish Flu. (1918 and 1919), at the beginning of the 20th century. I intend to present the reconfiguration of my path in times of a pandemic until this time of a possible hope that it can be controlled. For this reflection, I will use the diary notes that I have been writing over time, the memory of the experience and the accomplishments, activities, connections and other ways that allowed me to be alive and active in the face of this terrible situation. Reinvent myself as a researcher and organizer of training, extension and participation in research networks and collaborative action, in forms of co-learning and learning centered on learners, their stories, their desires, emotions and visions of the world , in the reconfiguration of interactions, sometimes mediated by technologies, others by the possible forms of encounters that the situation sometimes allowed. Certain that crises reinvent us and reinvent our being as teachers, researchers and actions with the community and can contribute to the reinvention of schools, universities and institutions, that the temporal dimension has changed - that the future is today.