GIVING THANKS TO REMEMBER AND BE REMEMBERED: WHY DO WE NEED TO THANK?

Free. That’s how he understood it. A gift. A moment outside the moments. After all. The night story freed him from the weight of the day. We let go of the moorings. He would go with the wind, immensely light, and the wind was our voice. (^{Pennac, 1993}, p. 13, our translation)

The acknowledgment text, written more often at the end of the writing of the other parts of the research, is not a mere accessory or formality. The organization of words, in what, in many cases, is the only narrative and personal manifestation of the investigation path, requires intentionality and sensitivity. When giving thanks, the author places him/herself in the text based on other rules: inclusion and exclusion criteria are affective, the method is narrative and the analysis includes errors and triumphs, and it is guided by the processes. In the text, names of the living and dead, entities and divinities, people and animals, individuals and groups can be summoned. It is his/her moment for free writing, a protected zone from judging eyes and academic evaluation, outside the moments (considered central to the research). Contradictorily, it is in this “outside”, so “inside” of the study, that part of the objective conditions of production is revealed. Because once narrative and based on its own coherence, the text of the acknowledgments brings important elements for us to think about the research “beyond the black box” of subjectivities and ephemeralities, that is, beyond the notion of experience as something that cannot be investigated (^{Clandinin and Connely, 2011}).

If the writing of acknowledgments is carried out at the end of the process, its position in the organization of the text is at the beginning. Starting the research register by thanking and sharing the process is something coherent with the idea of a narrative thinking, which is expressed in writing not for mere formality, but, above all, to invite the reader to know the choices and paths that culminate in the work systematized there. In addition to the tributes paid, we get to know fragments of the author’s history and investigation also through the silences. What is often left unsaid reveals the ambiguities, the complexity of relating to others and oneself at this moment, the difficulties and uncertainties associated with research production.

Reading the set of acknowledgments, remembering our own acknowledgments (as authors or as advisors), we begin to reflect on why we need to thank. In a way, we perceive the formative character of registering, as thanks, part of the research history. “Taking it for granted that the exercise of narration is above all formative, we understand that the narration of research is also an exercise of constant reflection and improvement of the work itself as researchers.” (^{Aguiar and Ferreira, 2021}, p. 7, our translation). In the acknowledgments, the researcher is also a writer, interlocutor and protagonist of the narratives, an individual who is seeking answers and, at the same time, pointing out paths to others, in his/her own research space. Without the intention of carrying out prescriptions or general applications, he/she creates a text that can make his/her interlocutors recognize themselves in writing and imagine their own uses and lessons, in other research activities.

By making use of writing to organize the author’s memories, some relevant lessons are learned, which are not easily evident in the course of academic activity: the importance of collaborative work, the constant presence of the other in the way of thinking and acting, the appreciation of affection for intellectual and professional development, the need for focus and persistence in studies. The exercise of reviewing one’s own choices is formative, as it also denounces the impact of social life and cultural practices on our constitution as individuals. We perceive the violence that researchers are sometimes subjected to because they are inserted in the academic productivist logic, when fatigue, sleep deprivation and abandonment of social life are presented as if they were criteria for the development of a good work. Whether difficult or light moments, permeated by all kinds of feelings, what is narrated in the text of the acknowledgments denounces that we, researchers, are not separated from our research:

As researchers, we are also part of the activity. We collaborate to build the world we find ourselves in. We are not mere objective researchers, people on the high road who study a world reduced in quality than our moral temperament would conceive it to be, people who study a world we did not help to create. On the contrary, we are complicit in the world we study. To be in this world, we need to remake ourselves, as well as offer research insights that can lead to a better world. (^{Clandinin and Connelly, 2011}, p. 97, our translation)

Accomplices of the world, we need to mark our place as researchers as a place marked by often precarious working conditions. We need to reaffirm that research is carried out by ordinary people, full of doubts and emotions, worries about the deadlines, and who recognize the help they received, is a way of offering new and important insights into the research work and, above all, it is a way of being present in the writing. Even knowing that writing usually carries the mark of each one of us as writers, which constitutes our authorship, we understand that the narrative fragments organized in the acknowledgments reveal more than the rhythm, cadence, and expression, which make the work easily identifiable as the work of a certain author. We are talking about the recognition of relationships that humanize and bring the person into the research writing itself.

Writing acknowledgments presupposes remembering the entire research process, but not to describe it faithfully, nor to report on certain highlights. The researcher’s search is for the faces, affections, and decisive gestures for the investigation to take place. For some, this trajectory begins in childhood, for others when they start their own graduate course. If the text starts from past experiences, it is not restricted to them. It is at the moment of writing - today - that the author expresses an understanding of what has passed, or even what is to come, establishing a new interpretive, dynamic, and reflective reading of the process previously experienced. The temporality of this writing is much more complex and comprehensive than the linearity of events.

Texts of gratitude, then, are more transformative than memory catalysts. This means that, when accepting the task of revisiting the process itself, the researcher uses other lenses to interpret his/her trajectory, already with a certain distance from the tense moments and the pressure of deadlines, which can allow for new reflections and an increased awareness of his/her own production conditions.

In this entry, narrating is not just telling a fact, it is also making the articulations assuming that writing is historically constituted, that is, when someone chooses to tell something - which they consider relevant to the community -, this narrative is not solely his/hers, as it involves actions, dreams and affections that are permeated by the culture and the marks of other experiences. As taken collectively, the experiences registered in the acknowledgments can refer to common situations, experienced by many authors at the time of writing their Master’s theses or Doctoral dissertations. The similarities refer, as pointed out by ^{Clandinin and Connely (2011}, p. 50, our translation) to the way a researcher’s life “[…] is experienced on a continuum - people’s lives, institutional lives, the lives of things.”.

To thank, as an investigative attitude, means to recognize our place in the research, inserted in a given environment and in a certain conjuncture that directly affects the choices and mishaps when carrying out the work. We assume ourselves as bearers of stories that merge with others (and only through them our own history is made possible). We also understand that our choices can be important for future researchers.

It means recognizing the historical character of my certainty. The historicity of knowledge, its nature as a process in permanent becoming. It means recognizing knowledge as a social production, which results from action and reflection, from curiosity in constant search movement. (^{Freire, 2001}, p. 9, our translation)

As also stated by ^{Freire (1986}), we advocate that being a researcher implies admitting that, alone, we cannot, we do not want to be, and we are not more. We agree with the author when he says that the investigative act results from intimacy with culture and society (knowing, living, and feeling reality), combined with the attitude of research and identification with investigative methods (knowing how to ask and knowing how to seek answers). Doing research, especially in Education, is therefore an exercise of dialogue with the community, with authors who have already addressed the topic, with the anxieties and doubts provoked in other times and spaces, presupposing a certain continuity and circularity of speeches, of what was lived and experienced. Reserving a space in the thesis or dissertation for writing that shapes and legitimizes these others is also a political and ethical choice, as it makes such relationships public and makes understandings, difficulties, bonds, and achievements materialize in the work.

The feeling of gratitude is awakened/fed with the review of the process and writing of the text, it does not always precede it. Perhaps only when taking a break from other tasks, with the aim of writing such part of the research, the author realizes what, and whom he/she should thank. Expressions of gratitude are, above all, the fruit of the understanding that we depend on each other, that we are not self-sufficient. Among so many and so controversial emotions experienced over a period of study, research, and writing, what is explained, above all, is recognition, praise/gratitude and commitment/retribution, to take the three levels of gratitude pointed out by Thomas Aquinas (^{Lauand, 1998}).

In the process of socializing and organizing everyday life, we are not always given opportunities to learn and teach to experience gratitude as a conscious personality trait. At different times, being grateful can refer to the way we remember the reciprocity of obligations, recognize debts and social affiliations (^{Pieta and Freitas, 2009}). However, over time and in different cultures, the expression of gratitude refers to the perception of how individual actions intertwine with collective life. When giving thanks, the author acknowledges that his/her work is made possible through the work of other people, and his/her creations stem from countless others, sometimes anonymous, that preceded him/her. Writing takes place, then, in this relationship between the researcher’s narrative and the history that connects him/her to his/her environment. In a constant tension between form and content, writing allows to leave a little bit of “me”, a little bit of “us”: “It refers to typically human issues, therefore transversal and urgent, which enter the history of subjects and materialize in registered experiences. It is, therefore, particular and individual, at the same time that it refers to the diverse and the collective.” (^{Aguiar and Ferreira, 2021}, p. 8, our translation).

Writing, placed on a border between narrative thinking and traditional academic molds, reaffirms that the study was only possible because the researcher was that specific researcher, with those conditions, at that time and space. It restores the humanity of the process, remembering that the researcher is not a signature or a filterable variable. On the contrary, it is an inseparable part of his/her work (^{Clandinin and Connely, 2011}).

In its structure, what stands out in the acknowledgments is not only the information about who the remembered people are, but especially the small narrative fragments that make up the text and point to other stories and memories.

TO GOD, TO MY CLOSE ONES, TO OPPORTUNITIES: WHAT/WHO DO WE THANK?

Every literary work carries a person inside, who is the author. The author is a small world among other small worlds. His/her existential experience, his/her thoughts, his/her feelings are there. (^{Saramago, 2010}, p. 224, our translation)

Reading the acknowledgments opens up possibilities for a broader understanding and new perspectives for reading the rest of the research. We say this because we believe that they are the author’s marks, revealed as a sign to be unveiled in the text. According to ^{Clandinin and Connely (2011}, p. 64, our translation), “[…] it is necessary to make a narrative interpretation of that sign before the meaning can be related to it. Without understanding the narrative story, the symbol, its importance or meaning remain unknown.”.

In the acknowledgments, we identify the affections and the presences that made possible the assembling of the published work. Going further, we can say that, through the small narratives that are articulated in the text, we can also get to know a little about the researcher and know how his/her own life took place in the period included in the investigation, between obstacles and opportunities. Reiterating and expanding ^{Saramago’s (2010}) statement, we understand the research text as a production full of personality marks - because it could only be carried out, in the way it is presented, by that person and with his/her own perspective and questions; but also of humanity - as it is made possible by the presence, exchange and support of an entire community. So, it is the writing that takes people into it.

The formulation of the acknowledgments seems to refer to a mixture of choices and feelings that oscillate between relief due to the end of the work, gratitude for the achievement and the anguish of the pressure suffered.

Finalization of the thesis. Time to gather the sparse writings, the scribbled sheets and the notes distributed on the worktable. It is time to organize writing and thoughts, put together the puzzle that characterizes the moment of completion. But it is also time to remember everyone who contributed, in some way or another, to the realization of this work and, more than remembering, to give thanks. (T_S_39, our translation)²

This was a part that I struggled to write at the end of the work, in view of the moment after writing my thesis, already exhausted, but still happy. There were so many subjects who contributed to the making of this work, that if I forget to mention someone, I must apologize for my carelessness. (T_SE_11, our translation)

In this academic journey of so many struggles, effort, resignation and the will to win, I counted on the presence, support, encouragement and collaboration of many people. So, in a gesture of recognition, I register my affectionate gratitude […]. (D_SE_12, our translation)

As personal as the process of conducting a research is, such a process, like a capoeira circle, does not occur alone, but with the direct and/or indirect participation of many people. I sincerely apologize for not being able to mention all those who, directly and/or indirectly, kindly helped me in the work in question. Thus, I thank [...]. (D_NE_11, our translation)

We observe how part of the acknowledgments gives credit to people, institutions, entities, personalities, or beings who did not necessarily contribute objectively to the research, but who perhaps should be remembered for their importance in the researcher’s life. They are recognitions that express the idea that company, affection, or constant presence help the writer to remain firm in his/her purposes. In addition, it is clear that there are some everyday types of help and support that are so that we cannot even register and remember them all. We can only say “many”, “all”, “indirectly”, “someone”.

If recognition aims to remember who is important to the researcher, despite his/her work, writing often also brings gratitude for some help provided, as well as the understanding that the actions of people or groups directly influenced ideas, purposes, or motivations for carrying out the research. Acknowledgement appears, in these cases, as a way of registering the generosity of those who carried out a more attentive review, support with readings and debates, the correction of specific points in the writing, and sensitive listening. People who have provided support in staying with the children/babysitting, taking care of household chores, replacing or assuming functions at work and even sheltering by providing a place to live are also recognized.

Expressing something even different from gratitude, there are times when researchers mention those who effectively made the research possible and to whom they express a certain feeling of debt or a desire for retribution. They are acknowledgments that can both demonstrate obligations, as we observed when the credits are made to the institutions that offered financial support, as well as complicity and partnership, bringing the idea that the researcher is part of a group and that his/her work is of focusing or systematizing knowledge that is produced collectively, so that research is only possible thanks to the existence of this network.

We found that, depending on who writes, his/her life trajectory, beliefs and choices, the same mention can portray different expressions. A thanks to some divinity, for example, can be done in very different ways between authors, revealing different emphasis and understandings about the role of faith in carrying out the research.

Firstly, I thank God for giving me health, strength and courage, factors that throughout my life have made me victorious! In particular, for having always been by my side, in my journey as a Master’s student, whose results are expressed in this work. And also for the comforting certainty that will always be with me. (T_SE_15, our translation)

To get here today and complete my Master’s thesis, I came sailing in a boat commanded by the strength of my ancestors, I went through the difficulties of a turbulent sea, I almost sank, I barely survived, but I had the strength and courage to move on, I was sheltered by all the Orixás, with Ogun opening the way and Iemanjá holding me in her Mother’s lap, so that I could also see beautiful sunny days with a lot of energy and continue. But this boat of mine found itself and joined other boats and kept on growing […]. And for all that, I can only give thanks […]. (T_SE_7, our translation)

Praises to gods, entities, congregations, institutions of different religious matrices, when they appear in writing, are usually the first mention made. An expression of a cultural trait that is very present in the lives of Brazilians, faith seems to have a dialogue with science when researchers register the importance of their beliefs in the preservation of a research attitude. Above all, the gods are credited with the strength to reconcile investigative activity with other aspects of everyday life. The texts reveal that the research and writing paths are tortuous, demanding and tiring. Some researchers recognize, when citing divine interference, that only their personal determination would not be enough to handle the task undertaken.

The relationship between science and faith is not a new topic, as the production of knowledge about reality has dialogues - or questions - with fantastic representations and with the thought that transcends our concrete experiences. The religious experience is portrayed by the researchers as a presence that comforts, brings confidence and a sense of belonging, things that reaffirm the belief that they are carrying out important work. The understanding of religion expressed in the acknowledgments leads to the understanding that there is not always a dispute between cultural practices that value spirituality and the activity of producing scientific knowledge.

We also observed important cultural marks in the acknowledgments to family members. Texts’ reading reaffirms that, throughout the research, there are pretty troubled moments, which require special conditions of production, often obtained from the sacrifice of loved ones and also from the significant reduction of time spent with family. Tolerance and understanding in the face of absences, overload and emotional instability are highlighted as reasons to be grateful:

To all my family and friends, who helped and often understood my various moments of “not”: I will not be able to go... There will not be time for... Maybe another day... (D_SE_9, our translation)

Firstly, to my family for encouraging me to continue on this academic path and for the affection with which they supported me, even when my choices did not make much sense to them and for understanding my absences during these last years. (T_NE_4, our translation)

To my mother, for her understanding when she saw me hours in front of the computer, worried about the many sleepless nights and for the encouragement with which she fed me every day. (D_MW_3, our translation)

To my partner, who experienced the anguish with me during the Master’s degree. I am sorry for the bad mood, the exaggerations that sometimes took hold of me during the writing process, and for the exhausting work. (T_N_12, our translation)

Still in this aspect, we agree with ^{Martino and Marques (2019}) when they observed the importance of family affection networks to help researchers, especially when they are mothers. There are many thanks, made by women, for the help with motherhood during the research. In the texts we read, only women extend their thanks to people who are not family members, but who have fulfilled the role of a support group in caring for their children. There are records of gratitude to nannies, maids, neighbors (who welcomed the children when they arrived from school), the doorman of the building and other people close by. The texts express, in addition to gratitude, the need to remain responsible for managing household chores and raising children, even when absent, denouncing the emotional and physical overload to which women are subjected.

To my parents, who, despite having little schooling, allowed me to move forward with my studies. Mom helped me when I stole a few hours of her life, to be with my son during classes, as well as in the final step before the defense. I thank you so much, my dear mother. (D_MW_2, our translation)

To my in-laws, who also helped me by giving time of their lives to me, by making time available to take care of my children, when I had my own Master’s commitments. I don’t know how I would do it without your help. (D_NE_12, our translation)

By publicly sharing their frustrations and acknowledging the limitations of being a researcher and a mother, structural themes emerge that are little debated in academic society, which resonate and generate identification in women who dedicate themselves to science and university careers: the conciliation between motherhood and professional life and the female presence in scientific knowledge production communities.

According to the research “^{Parent in Science}” ([s.d.]), women in Brazil are the majority of researchers at all levels of education and in almost all areas of research, making up the basis of science produced in the country. Therefore, it seems urgent to rethink the productivist logic on which the main mechanisms of academic evaluation and promotion are based, which disregards the particularities of the conditions and times of production in maternity, which contributes to reinforcing gender inequality and excluding from academic practices a whole group of potential researchers.

Along with the difficulties related to gender equality, the barriers and difficulties experienced due to racial and social class prejudice are represented in the acknowledgements to family members. In these cases, the researchers demonstrate, through their narratives, an awareness that their place at the university was made possible by the struggle fought before, by their parents, grandparents, and ancestors:

To my family, which is an example of resistance and struggle for life, which faced all the difficulties imposed by the existing social inequalities in our country, I thank you for your support and teachings. (T_S_16, our translation)

To my ancestors, from where the threads of stories come to me. Especially to Denise, my dear sister, who passed away during the process of writing this work. With the knowledge acquired from Africa, I think about the possibility of her absence being nothing more than a new way of becoming a presence. (T_SE_12, our translation)

I am infinitely grateful to my parents for all the dedication and effort they put into providing me the tools I needed to get into graduate school. […]. I have always heard from you that the inheritance to be left for me and my brothers would be knowledge. (D_N_1, our translation)

The writing marks that the author is also part of a certain culture, constituted by his/her ethnicity and social class and denounces that his/her conditions of production are crossed by these marks. Certain texts bring the feeling that access to the university and the production of knowledge were not part of the field of possibilities to be glimpsed by people like these researchers and that their access is also a political occupation of the academic space. Only in this part of the text, when positioning themselves narratively, the researchers seem to assume their history and memory as a force that helps them to understand their processes, choices, and investigation questions.

Tributes to ancestry and/or to social movements carry the recognition that being inside a university and carrying out research activity is not limited to the effort itself, but also - and mainly - to the social organization. Therefore, we perceived, in the writing, the understanding that the completion of the theses and dissertations of the researchers, belonging to groups considered marginal, represents an achievement for the whole society, if we seek to break with inequality and prejudice. Although this topic has been debated for some time, equality and valuing diversity is only effective with the insertion, in the academy, of researchers belonging to groups that traditionally have fewer opportunities to access research spaces.

Reading the acknowledgments also points us to formative dimensions of academic life that go beyond research activity. Especially when affectionately registering the constant presence of friends, conversations that take place in moments of relaxation and breaks between classes, trips to participate in scientific events, and the dialogue with researchers met during the investigation are highlighted as productive. The coexistence and university experience are configured, in these narratives, as opportunities for development that, although not objectively present in the writing of the text, need to be recognized.

I especially want to thank Maria, Joana and Caio, for their support in moments of conflict, in the face of so many theories, searches, deadlines, congresses, notices, articles. For sharing experiences, victories and failures. In short, faced with the madness of a graduate student life. […]. I am also grateful for the contributions on the text in the orientation sessions, which helped in the growth of this research. (T_NE_16, our translation)

Katia, a tireless person in helping me to weave this thesis. […]. You managed to help me organize and write my thoughts, or rather, understand what I wanted to say. And when I lacked words, you would come with your smile saying: that word will do, and we would laugh. I believe I no longer have a classmate, I have a new sister. To you, who sometimes saw me crying and stared at me, without interrupting me, until I finished talking, I thank you, thank you very much. (T_SE_19, our translation)

Among the valued and positively portrayed relationships during the thesis or dissertation period of production, the company and peer support stands out in many acknowledgments. According to ^{Ferreira (2020}), a group of researchers who reflect and live experiences together can share the feeling of friendship, which represents mutual identification and also learning through difference and otherness. Friendship, in this sense of collectivity, constitutes a possibility of transformation and improvement. We learn that it is possible to combine training and professional performance with a strong feeling of complicity and companionship.

We understand friendships established in the professional environment as committed relationships with others, which go beyond sympathy, daily coexistence, or collegiality. Friends play a role in the life and writing of the researcher by offering other understandings and readings of their production, which the researcher him/herself would never be able to have on his/her own. These are relationships that lead to wanting to be more, to do the best and to overcome what seems to be a comfort zone. “One listens, confesses, accepts, calms his/her own concerns, but one also expects […] seriousness in the discourse about the other. Hence, friendship relationships are […] an ethical-aesthetic space of invention, creation, experimentation.” (^{Loponte, 2009}, p. 932, our translation).

The affective bond and the feeling of friendship also appear in the acknowledgments to the research supervisor. The partnership relationship and support in conducting the research are presented as characteristics to be valued in the orientation process. Admiration and respect for the most experienced professor are also evident in the writing.

To my supervisor professor, for his trust in me towards the accomplishment of this study, for the proposed academic challenges and for the wise, valuable and fraternal guidelines during the journey of knowledge production, during the construction of the research. (T_NE_5, our translation)

To my supervisor, for her patience in living with my anxieties and for her firmness in conducting this research. (T_SE_14, our translation)

I want to start by thanking my supervisor and, now, a new friend, who, through his sensitivity, showed me beautiful, distressing and reflective paths. It was with his good foundation that I walked firmly on this long journey. (D_SE_9, our translation)

To the supervisor, for being a guide, friend and for allowing me to be a “bird in flight”. Anchored in Rubem Alves, I thank you for not wanting to be “cage-school”, but “wing-school” that encourages us to fly. (D_SE_5, our translation)

The mentoring relationship provides for continuous coexistence and frequent contact for periods between two to six years at a time that is usually one of the most challenging for researchers, the writing of the thesis or dissertation. In this context, we understand that the knowledge construction process is not an isolated activity and requires mutual sharing and collaboration. Monitoring the investigation is not a mere formality and is usually decisive for carrying out a work that dialogues with the academic community and reverberates new reflections. It is, as ^{Severino (2013}, p. 146, our translation) recalls, an educational relationship:

The role of the supervisor is not the role of father, tutor, protector, defense attorney, analyst, nor is it that of overseer, executioner, slave master or anything else. He is an educator, therefore establishing an educational relationship with his supervisee, with all that this means, in terms of scientific elaboration, between researchers. A true educational relationship necessarily presupposes joint work in which both parties grow. It is a reciprocal enrichment relationship. It is necessary for a dialectical interaction to take place in which any form of oppression or submission is absent.

Interestingly, authors show gratitude for attitudes that should be expected, from their research supervisors, for being part of their professional activity: encouraging independence, demonstrating safety in conducting, being present, acting with patience and respect, asking questions, and pointing out possibilities. Such recognition leads us to think about the difficulties encountered in the research process, which often mean that the supervision does not occur smoothly.

We also see portrayed in the words of the researchers the difficult situation of excess work that is imposed on supervisors and also on those being supervised, given the productivist logic that rules the evaluations of programs and professors today. On the one hand, as highlighted by ^{Zabalza (2019}, p. 12, our translation), professors sometimes find themselves “[…] in a precarious situation, overloaded with hours to be able to achieve an acceptable salary, in a permanent interim situation or at risk of losing their job […]”. They often manage an excessive number of students being supervised, with little time to follow up on research, and they also reconcile a variety of themes and tasks that can make effective monitoring of the researcher being supervised difficult. On the other hand, researchers who start research activities for a Master’s or Doctorate in Education often do so in conjunction with other professional activities, dedicating part time to studies and managing multiple tasks and dedicating less quality time to writing. ^{Zabalza (2019}) reaffirms that it is necessary to guarantee minimum conditions, comparable to other professionals in the category, that allow education teachers and researchers to carry out their work in dignified conditions.

In the same affectionate way that they refer to supervisors, the tributes to university employees and also to people who collaborated with their job, in something that was requested by the researchers, emphasize the promptness and kindness, collaborative attitude and availability to help, even when the working conditions of these people are not the most adequate.

To the librarians of the Education Center, for the prompt collaboration, kindness and quality of the services provided, which contributed immensely to the accomplishment of our investigation. (D_NE_5, our translation)

To the employees of the Public Archives, who, even in unfavorable working conditions, always made an effort to meet my numerous requests. (T_S_16, our translation)

To the sellers of new and used books in the center and suburbs of the city, for providing access to rare materials at affordable prices, above all, accompanied by our conversations. (T_NE_14, our translation)

One aspect to be considered is that collaborators, such as those mentioned, may not be readers of the work and do not assume that their assistance will be recognized in the academic text. Unlike the advisor and family members, who figure in most of the works (and in a way they expect so), this type of recognition seems to have great value because it is carried out more spontaneously. The contributions of people who make photocopies, secretarial assistants, librarians, IT technicians, proofreaders and other professionals who facilitated access to the information necessary to carry out the research are highlighted. We realize, with these frequent mentions, that there is recognition, on the part of the researcher, of the constant and sometimes less valued work of those who deal with administrative tasks in institutions.

We also highlight the presence of praise for both personal and professional attributes of employees, as pointed out by ^{Ferlini (2013}). If it seems important to register in the acknowledgments that people performed their work with promptness, attention, speed, and efficiency (which leads us to think about the possible expectation that these professionals would attend with harshness, slowness, or disinterest), there is also the intention to highlight that the mentioned employees are distinguished by maintaining cordial relations with the community, being helpful, humorous, and friendly.

Professors who have passed through the lives of researchers and who are admired, especially those who taught impactful disciplines or who were privileged readers of the work (composing the qualification and defense panels, or in informal arguments and discussions within the research group itself) are honored with affection and respect.

In this dissertation there is a very felt presence of Professor Raquel. Not by citations and explicit references, as it is necessary to go deeper to actually find her within the text. Presence tied to ways of thinking, to critical intentionality, to the belief in polysemy as a way of seeing. There are countless words of hers that dismissed the quotes in my own thinking... If a thank you is not enough, the friendship that remains is the certainty of the beautiful shared journey and the bet on everything that will come. (D_SE_11, our translation)

On this occasion, therefore, I need to highlight the role of teachers Telma and Ana for their kindness in sharing their research experience, always encouraging and enhancing our curiosity about the research developed. With them I learned the playfulness of research and the importance of carrying it out with pleasure and seriousness. (T_NE_8, our translation)

The formulation of acknowledgments to professors, other than the research supervisor, refers to the approximations and affinities created during the research. In agreement with ^{Haya (2018}), we noticed that, in some texts, such mentions seem to gain a tonic of self-promotion, as if the highlight of the proximity to certain intellectuals in the field of scientific production brought credibility to the work presented. However, the predominance is of narratives related to meetings with professors that were remarkable to reaffirm professional choices and that are admired for their intellectual and relational capacity.

The gratitude expressed to the professors makes one think about the relevance of the pedagogical work of permanent formation that is developed at the same time that the research is developed in the graduate programs. Professors can become inspiring figures and thus offer a model of professionalism and commitment to academic knowledge. Extrapolating collegiality, the professional dimension and engagement in the area are emphasized. Agreeing with ^{Zabalza (2019}), we understand that it is essential to reaffirm the professor and researcher as an Education worker, who has experienced specific and high-level training; someone who recognizes and values autonomy in his/her work; that shares knowledge and sees him/herself in an ongoing training. Distancing, thus, their image from the “[…] diffuse and limbic zone of vocational amateurism with which they exercised their profession for many years […]” (^{Zabalza, 2019}, p. 16, our translation). The emphasis on memorable professors emphasizes the exercise of a profession that is based on coexistence, but above all on intentional, purposeful, and effective teaching actions.

In dialogue with the tributes paid to the professors who constitute them, researchers also thank the authors they have read, with whom they did not have the opportunity of a close dialogue, but for whom they feel grateful for the contributions, which they say have significantly changed their way of thinking and understanding the world.

To the readings and reflections undertaken on/by Jorge Larrosa, Michel Foucault and Zygmunt Bauman; Clarice Lispector, Fernando Pessoa (and his various heteronyms), Mário Quintana and Rainer Rilke; Epictetus and Seneca; Chögyam Trungpa, Osho and Pema Chödron. How they feed and animate my soul, giving me reasons to support myself in this world. In their inspiring and vivid presence, I never feel alone! (T_NE_10, our translation)

Finally, to the authors I read and talked to secretly in my readings and to those who, unexpectedly, appeared and made me reflect on issues I had not previously thought about. (T_N_2, our translation)

The resumption of these theoretical encounters and the recognition of the importance of those who, in other times and spaces, also dedicated their lives to science (and art), makes us understand the research activity as a situation that favors the development of consciousness and the expansion of horizons. Authors give us clues that reading meant much more than the fulfillment of some of the most important tasks of study, the bibliographic survey and theoretical appropriation. They demonstrate that reading enables the emancipation of thought, through contact with other ways of thinking and understanding reality. According to ^{Soligo and Prado (2007}, p. 34, our translation), dialogue with authors, carried out through reading, “[…] enables accessing information, knowing what was hitherto unknown, producing meanings from texts written by the other, […] the exercise of the necessary expression. And generosity. And the commitment. Not only with the other, but also with us.”.

Among the institutions that are remembered, there is a constant record of thanks to funding agencies, which offer financial support for researchers to develop their research. Sometimes the text used in this part is a protocol and refers to the author’s ethical commitment to credit the support and give visibility to the policies of investment in scientific production in the country. However, some researchers use this space to write more freely and register their understanding:

I would like to recognize the Brazilian people as responsible for a large part of my education, due to the resources applied in public services that allowed me to continue my studies, through the maintenance of schools and universities where I studied; funding of scholarships received in Master’s and Doctoral courses. (D_SE_19, our translation)

I am especially grateful for the funding of my trips to participate in national and international events, in which I was able to improve my knowledge, present ideas, discuss, review and deepen the issues of the dissertation. Getting to know some Brazilian cities brought me closer to my object of study in a more sensitive and pleasant way. The participation in events abroad, made possible by the program, gave me a cultural and theoretical background that contributed significantly to the dissertation writing process. (D_SE_10, our translation)

The political position of the researchers, by revering the Brazilian population as the main funder of research in our country, draws our attention to the commitment, assumed when carrying out an investigation with public resources and reiterated in the form of acknowledgments, with the development of studies that can reverberate changes in common life and in the public sphere, in an affirmative cycle.

Also, acknowledgments to supporting institutions highlight the exchange, academic and cultural experiences, as well as the participation in scientific events and the technical visits made possible, which strengthen ties and enhance the initiatives of inter-institutional cooperation and the internationalization of graduate programs, since the researchers would possibly not be able to afford, with personal resources, such investments during the years of writing the thesis or dissertation.

In some situations, we also identified the use of terms and markers that suggest irony or protest when giving thanks. Authors (supposedly) thank their enemies, the refusal of funding, the boss who did not allow them to be dismissed from work, the lack of structure at universities, the sleepless nights. The entry appears, in these moments, as a way to show that not everything is going well during the research and to express that the obstacles contribute, to some extent, to nourish the critical gaze at reality.

Among other groups and people mentioned in the acknowledgment writing, there are authors who cite future readers of the research. This reference leads us to think about the feeling mobilized in the researcher, when imagining his/her words read by the other, the possibility of the study reaching several people who are interested in the topic. It is a future acknowledgment, which includes the prediction of a certain circulation of the text in the academic environment and also among basic education teachers, depending on the nature of the research. According to ^{Haya (2018}, p. 197, our translation), “[…] the audience exists in the imagination of the researcher from the beginning of the research and it is a necessary condition that must be fulfilled by the research text. Admitting the audience, however, creates tension.”.

Along with the excitement of being seen and read, there is also the embarrassment and fear of exposure. Especially in the writing of the acknowledgments, which sometimes narrates the intimacy and/or the minutiae of years of research, this ambivalence is involved. Therefore, sometimes we find parts of the writing that are understandable only to those who have experienced certain situations or are intimate with the author. “Its reading is public, but its understanding is restricted. Even so, it is possible to infer, from the clues offered, presences and absences during the academic trajectory.” (^{Martino and Marques, 2019}, p. 160, our translation).

Finally, we understand that it is necessary to reflect on the absences sometimes felt in some research works: the lack of the acknowledgment text itself, the silence in relation to people who are usually contemplated in the writing, the gaps when writing about supervisory partnerships, the refusal to narrate about oneself and the research experience. In attention to what was not said, silence becomes relevant as an indication. However, as such, it cannot be considered without understanding the contexts, the given words and the choices made.

Without wanting to associate absences with ingratitude, taking up the idea that this part of writing the thesis or dissertation is particularly difficult because it is carried out at a time of physical, emotional and intellectual exhaustion - which follows the final rush of writing the body of the text - and, at the same time, because it demands a first-person weave, which approximates and reveals the conditions of production, absences can lead to shortness of energy, little distance and perspective for the author to recognize all the important or memorable people. Still, it refers to the same hardships of the thesis or dissertation process, present in the words written other times: a path full of choices and renunciations, which generates knowledge and emancipation, but also leads us to live with our difficulties and face the conditions, not always fair and egalitarian, of the production. This path that, perhaps, certain authors are not yet willing to narrate.

DUTY, CORDIALITY AND FRIENDSHIP: WHAT HAPPENS TO US IN THE ELABORATION OF THE RESEARCH?

Writing is a salvation. It saves the trapped soul, it saves the person who feels useless, it saves the day one lives and never understands unless one writes. Writing is to try to reproduce the unreproducible, it is to feel until the very end the feeling that would only remain vague and suffocating. Writing is also blessing a life that has not been blessed. (^{Lispector, 2006}, n.p., our translation)

At the beginning of this text, we asked: What is said, in the acknowledgments of dissertations and theses, about doing research and about who researches in Education? In the search for answers, we argued that the writing of this part of an academic work is composed of different narrative excerpts, revealing the conditions of scientific production that make it possible to understand not only the particularities experienced by a particular researcher, but above all the recurring elements, absences, choices, and refusals that permeate the trajectory of many authors in the course of the investigation.

Narrative writing, as it is focused on people and their relationships, values what is lived, because from experiences we extract lessons for other dimensions of human experience. Therefore, as ^{Connelly and Clandinin (1997}) point out, it is important for the researchers to tell their life stories (even if briefly, in the acknowledgments, when the weave of the rest of the text does not allow this explicit presence), announce their process and not let it be silent, because their stories and memories must also be preserved.

We observed that the writing of the acknowledgments makes the development and learning resulting from the research perceptible to the reader of the work, but not explicit in other parts of the text. The movement of retaking one’s own trajectory, made possible by this writing, is also configured as an exercise of review and evaluation of the years dedicated to the study, which is formative for the researcher.

The reading of the chosen texts showed that the research activity requires dedication, courage, and strength (recognized by some as grace, protection, or a blessing) that sometimes lead to prolonged absences from social and family life. It is an activity that, when performed by educators, needs to be reconciled with other work fronts and with everyday tasks, especially for women researchers. These accumulated demands, added to the precarious conditions offered, at present, to the supervisors and also to the supervisees, make the research path sometimes painful, arduous and a reason for suffering.

The acknowledgments remind us, on the other hand, that occupying the position of researcher at a university is a political gesture and a gesture of breaking social barriers, an achievement made possible by the struggle and work of many generations. The academic experience reveals itself as formative and transformative, as the encounters with professors (which become memorable), the approximation to theories and readings, the circulation in national and international events, the dialogue with people who are also carrying out research and all other scientific activities, sometimes taken as routine, are essential for researchers to enter the academic community and see themselves as producers of knowledge.

They also point out that carrying out their studies is made possible by support and dialogue networks, as well as by partnerships established inside and outside universities. The recognition of such conditioning aspects, the interdependence existing between the academic community itself and the difficulties faced during the research do not, however, minimize the construction of the researcher’s autonomy. On the contrary, remembering the process and writing the acknowledgments makes it evident that the study and the weave of the academic text are transformative and emancipate the author. As pointed out by ^{Martino and Marques (2019}, p. 172, our translation), “[…] the construction of intellectual autonomy is intersubjective, depending on the way we apprehend, consider and recognize those who, for being linked to us - through language or another form of institutionality - assist us […]”.

We end this text by highlighting the contribution of the writing of acknowledgments to the valorization of Education as a field of research and of the researcher’s activity. We live in difficult times, in which, as ^{Canário (2007}, p. 15, our translation) points out, professors and researchers “[…] have been threatened by a process of proletarianization that can only be contradicted by asserting their autonomy in the production of professional knowledge seen as legitimate.”. By structuring and circulating the writing of this process, we give visibility to the resistance and insistence of researchers, who are faced with unfavorable conditions and even so maintain the social commitment to the production of knowledge in the area. We humanize ourselves, we recognize ourselves in the difficulties of the other, we no longer see ourselves alone in research. With this, we understand ourselves as a collective that can act in a transgressive and emancipatory way.