REFLECTIONS ABOUT ACADEMIC FORMATION IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION ON THE LIGHT OF TECHNOLOGIES OF SELF IN FOUCAULT

Abstract

This article seeks support in Foucault’s conceptions of ethics and aesthetics of existence to compose reflections on academic training in Physical Education. As a way to mobilize this intent, the notion of “technologies of the self”, found in the last stage of Michel Foucault’s work, is contextualized. Next, heterogeneous and differential approximations are outlined between the ethical problem posed to the constitution of the subject and academic training. Although these approximations must be seen with caution – in order not to take the constitution practices of ancient subjects as a distant origin to forge and explain a formative model for modern subjects – such approximations point to other non-hegemonic rationalities that oppose the enabling logics commonly attributed to academic training, which tend to be reduced to its instrumental aspects only. In this way, the reflections ahead here do not affirm general theories, nor good or bad truths about training, but give visibility to the composition of alternative discursive and non-discursive practices of elaboration and shaping of the self, established in the power dynamics that support them throughout the formative journey.