Anthropological readings of education and their relations to ableism in the work of Kamome Shirahama

Abstract

The present article has as its object of study the fantasy manga Witch Hat Atelier, written by the Japanese screenwriter and designer Kamome Shirahama. It analyzes the academic universe of the story and its relations with its characters, especially those with disabilities. The main goal of this research is to understand the connections between different anthropological readings of education and the process of structural ableism established in the fictional society of the manga, understanding how these associations represent the often repressive context of education. This project is a qualitative research of theoretical nature, which constitutes a case study of the first nine volumes of the Witch Hat Atelier manga, published in Brazil between July 2019 and November 2021 by Panini Comics. This paper’s conclusion is that the author, by creating a story permeated by troubled relationships between masters and apprentices, allows us to reflect on how traditional and fundamentally technical education can be inefficient when dealing with students who diverge from the standard of expectations stimulated by a society that does not observe the student in his/her cultural, historical and social totality. Therefore, we are induced by the plot to search for subversive solutions to this system, which can reach the concepts of liberating and humanized education, as idealized by the patron of Brazilian education Paulo Freire (1921–1997).