Introduction

Engaging with oneself, folding back upon some dimension and existence of one's life in a perspective of self-knowledge that leads to self-awareness and, consequently, to a respectful consciousness for the other, is an essential part of education based on an integral understanding that encompasses the educational phenomenon in a transdisciplinary manner, contemplating the human being in its multiple dimensions (physical, sensory, emotional, mental, spiritual, etc.) and integrity (^{Röhr, 2013}).

In this way, we present our research objective: the possibilities of archaeological discourse analysis (AAD) contributing to the establishment of educational practices and processes based on alterity. It is worth noting that although some scholars throughout this essay will be engaged with, such as ^{Bourdieu and Passeron (1982}), ^{Weber (1994}), ^{Rosemberg (2006}), and ^{Freire (1981}, ²⁰¹¹), our problematizations regarding the subject under examination are grounded in the discourse analysis approach presented by ^{Foucault (2008}) in his book The Archaeology of Knowledge.

With this issue as the object of our reflection from the perspective of AAD, several significant aspects emerge. One of them relates to the language as a presupposition of the domain of AAD (^{Alcântara & Carlos, 2013}), serving as a sort of space where the object-discourse is found in its enunciative dimension (^{Foucault, 2008}), and AAD focuses on understanding and investigating the specificity of its mode of existence and functioning, in order to explore various interpretations and meanings, cross its threshold, and facilitate the passage from the sign to the statement⁴.

In this sense, this article aims to reflect on AAD not only as a theoretical and methodological approach, but also as a way of life, bringing various aspects of human formation within a conception of the care of the self and the other, which can serve as powerful alternatives against the neoliberal individualistic logic. Thus, in this article, we emphasize the reflection on archaeological discourse analysis (AAD) as a possibility for human and educational formation. Our investigation is focused on what possibilities AAD has to establish educational practices and processes on a perspective of alterity, in contrast to the neoliberal individualistic logic? This paper has its specific purpose to reflect on and analyze these possibilities, as we understand that AAD is, at the same time, a methodology and a means to integrate research into life, in the sense of considering pathways that move towards a theoretical-methodological approach and can lead to an educational praxis of human formation. As a methodology, from our point of view, AAD is one of the various domains of knowledge that investigates language.

Initial thoughts

In The Hermeneutics of the Subject, ^{Foucault (2006}) discussed how issues about oneself emerged since Ancient Greece and gradually became established as a cultural parameter of sociability in the more recent social formations and educational practices of our history.

It is known that the educability of the care of the self is expressed in multiple ways, such as: the care of knowledge, cultivated values, desires, interests, tastes, emotions, morality, health, sexuality, preferences, ways of living, etc.

With the concept of the care of the self in ancient religiosity, however, especially in Greek thought of the 4th century BC, ^{Foucault (2006}) reveals the relationship between the philosophical question and the practice of spirituality as a set of conditions for oneself transformations that constitute the necessary condition for accessing the truth.

According to the author, in ancient Greece, the desire to be a moral subject and the pursuit of an ethics of existence were also an effort to assert freedom (^{Foucault, 2006}). However, it is important to highlight a contrast that ^{Foucault (2006}) analyzes and acknowledges well, stating that Christian spirituality differs from the prevailing position in pagan Greco-Roman antiquity, as the transition from antiquity to Christianity shifts from a morality focused on the pursuit of personal ethics to a morality based on obedience to a system of rules (^{Foucault, 2006}).

In fact, the ‘being governed’ is an aspect emphasized by the author concerning the pastoral power practices of the Christian church: "To govern, to be governed, to take care of the self, this is a sequence whose path would be long and complex, extending until the establishment, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, of the great pastoral power in the Christian church" (^{Foucault, 2006}, p. 57)⁵. It becomes evident that there is a shift in the concept of epiméleia heautoú (self-care) in this transition from Greco-Roman antiquity to Christianity.

As ^{Ferreira (2011}) emphasizes, that concept in antiquity indicates a stance characterized by a constant engagement with oneself. He adds that, far from being a self-centered concern, it is an activity aimed at perfecting the subject in relation to others, "[...] while at the same time being the central point of what is commonly referred to as the art of living" (Ferreira, 2011, p. 29)⁶. He concludes by describing practices for this care, such as "[...] meditation, listening, silence, dialogue, asceticism, and writing" (Ferreira, 2011, p. 30)⁷.

^{Foucault (2006}) aims to show that the care of the self, in this perspective, is then realized through rational and voluntary practices by which human beings "[...] not only determine rules of conduct for themselves but also seek to transform themselves, to modify their own singular being, and to make their lives a work that embodies certain aesthetic values and corresponds to certain criteria of style" (^{Foucault, 2006}, p. 199)⁸.

Differently from the care of the self evidenced in Greco-Roman antiquity described at hand, the current neoliberal perspective encompasses individualism, practiced in a selfish manner. Individualism is part of an exploratory neoliberal worldview, in which the logic is based on competition and meritocracy. In neoliberal sociability, the ego takes the place of the 'alter' in such a way that the reason for the existence of the 'alter' becomes conceived, justified, and even explained in terms of the ego: it is a self-centered way of conceiving the other.⁹

Neoliberalism typifies the current idea of a specific relationship established with others, mediated by the criterion of oneself, in which the prevailing logic is business-oriented, transforming the other into an object, a mere number. Here, we draw an analogy between neoliberal logic and the care of the self in Christianity, as this element of ^{Foucault's (2006}) analysis in the medieval period takes the form of Christian confession, within a framework of the director-directed relationship, in terms of pastoral power.

In this sense, the practices of existence, from the perspective of life as a work of art (in antiquity), lost some of their significance and autonomy when integrated into Christianity. "They became practices in the exercise of pastoral power and, later, practices of an educational, medical, or psychological nature, depending on the regimes and codes" (^{Wanzeler, 2011}, p. 29)¹⁰. In summary, it can be said that self-care in the Greeks refers to an art of living and a connection of the individual to the truth. Conversely, in the asceticism of the Christian tradition, self-care turns toward a renunciation of oneself through confession, in a more disciplinary perspective.

Revisiting the specific reflection on neoliberal logic, it is important to highlight that the roots of this neoliberal logic in Brazilian education begin with the implementation of technicist and productivity-oriented perspectives in Brazilian education (^{Saviani, 2007}). This primarily occurred during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), a period when the school ceased to be an institution of society and became a market institution. In this context, the school begins preparing not for society, but to produce capital for the market. From this conception arises the Theory of Human Capital, in which people are not seen as human beings but rather as capital.

Neoliberalism established itself in Brazil, particularly in education, after the 1988 Constitution and especially in the 1990s, bringing about a regression of regression. Once again, Neoliberalism exists in education, in the economy, in society, and in human relations, and thus, through this unequal logic, there is no longer room for everyone; only for the most competent, those who acquire the skills demanded by the market.

This system imposes on the excluded one a feeling of guilt, making them responsible for their own exclusion. This aspect is an issue discussed by Florestan ^{Fernandes (2020}) when addressing the educational challenges in Brazil.

This perspective is increasingly present in Brazil, as evidenced by the current counter-reform of secondary education. Currently, through this counter-reform, the modifications in education are influenced by the so-called globally structured education agenda, which seeks standardization, focus on the mother tongue and mathematics, results-based management, a redefinition of teachers' role, and a minimum standard of educational funding. In other words, these influences are not limited to the national sphere but penetrate into the conceptions of global values based on rationality, modernity, individualism, among other aspects (^{Gomides, 2018}).

According to ^{Gomides (2018}), these guidelines are expressed in various documents from international organizations such as the World Bank. Such values are closely related to the so-called Theory of Human Capital. This theory, in a dependent manner, seeks to link education to the process of capitalist development:

According to its main proponent, T. Schultz (1971), it is through the educational process that human labor is qualified, consequently enabling an increase in economic productivity and profit. Thus, education, from a technicist perspective, acquires economic value rather than social value, and ultimately enhances a meritocratic conception regarding the achievement of social well-being (^{Gomides, 2018}, p. 3)¹¹.

Such relationships are based on the exploitation of the other, with the centrality of the intersubjective relationship located in the ego, rather than in the 'alter.' This can be grasped by delving a bit into the ego-alter relationship from an epistemic point of view expressed in the notion of social action coined by Max ^{Weber (1994}), in light of the perspective conceived within the domain of Sociology. This notion exemplifies the idea of the other as a fundamental Weberian sociological premise for the analysis of social relations that means, in summary, an action performed by any individual that necessarily takes the other as a reference. Regarding this, Weber clarifies:

Social action (including omission or tolerance) is oriented by the behavior of others, whether that behavior is past, present, or expected as future (revenge for past attacks, defense against present attacks, or measures of defense to confront future attacks). The 'others' can be individuals and acquaintances or an indeterminate multitude of completely unknown people (for example, 'money' refers to a good intended for exchange, in which the agent accepts it in the exchange act because their action is guided by expectations that many others, however unknown and in an indeterminate number, will also be willing to accept it in a future exchange act) (^{Weber, 1994}, pp. 13-14, original emphasis)¹².

It is evident that the constitutive sense of this notion typifies and informs specificities of the social character in a given action. If we consider, for example, someone else opening an umbrella to protect themselves from a sudden drizzle, that action would not be social because the reference of it is to oneself, not to another. However, if the umbrella is opened to prevent another person from getting wet, it can be said that this act is of a different nature, as we would be facing an action based on the social assumption of acting in the other.

On the basis of ^{Weber's idea (1994}), the epistemological premise of the other as a reference has been established as the objective and necessary criteria for investigating and producing knowledge, explaining social relations, corporate and organizational functioning, as well as the interactions that exist between individuals in their daily lives and circumstances. Thus, as Weber (1994) understands, it would only be possible to comprehend social dynamics and the intelligibility of its events from this epistemological premise.

Basically however, if we consider these two cases - the neoliberal individualist perspective and that of Weberian sociology - we can identify at least two connotations: the first carries a negative semantic content, in which the other is dehumanized: it is the negation of everything that constitutes their cultural and existential identity; the neoliberal logic oppresses the human being in their own subjectivity.

In the second perspective (Weberian social action), the other is treated in a way that aligns with the notion of ‘alter’. This relational presupposition of the ‘alter’ places educational practice, in various social learning spaces, in a context of affection and care for the other. This second connotation carries a positive meaning, grounded in the recognition of the other and their uniqueness. In this case, there would be an establishment of an ego/‘alter’ relationship founded on the principle of difference, which would result in the reciprocal appreciation of the ‘alter’ as ‘alter’, and the ego as ego. Thus, a relationship of alterity is established in which the oneself and the other, the ego and the ‘alter’, are defined by the recognition and positive valuation of identity, difference, and mutual respect. This outlines a field of multiple possibilities for approaches, encounters, distancing, and growth based on commitments, responsibilities, and reciprocal care, serving as an alternative to the competitive and exploitative relationship with the other established by the neoliberal perspective.

From a social and cultural standpoint, we can say that the neoliberal perspective embedded in social relations promotes a fabric of sociocultural and educational processes and practices that conceal and colonize the other, leading to their assimilation and acculturation, as well as control and exploitation. Based on the perspective advocated by ^{Weber (1994}), difference and diversity are recognized, and consequently, the affirmative processes and practices of identity, respect, and the simultaneous preservation of autonomy for both parties are seen as necessary conditions for the formation of loving and ethical individuals, and creating ways of living that are linked to the development of humanity and the humanization of the individuals involved.

In the objective game of social and cultural relations, historically established in the contemporary global scenario, it is evident that the negative primacy of individuality and egocentric, individualistic, and narcissistic subjectivity flourishes. Overriding the principle of alterity, the primacy of self-negativity and meritocracy is erected as the hegemonic parameter from which people end up defining their conceptions and behaviors in relation to one another, thereby structuring their ways of living, their everyday intersubjective interactions, institutional and international relationships, and their social, political, and cultural spaces and times.

Marked by the historical and everyday objectivity of the negative-valorative dimension of a self-absorbed ego that prevails over the 'alter,' the educational practice develops itself from this individualistic perspective wounds the subjectivity of the human being and consequently is through a hegemonic way of living that naturalizes the domination of difference, denies their identity, and controls and governs their subjectivity. This is enacted through violent and repressive empirical and symbolic conceptions and practices, which are harmful to human development and to the subjectivity and autonomy of individuals.

This state of affairs produces, on a large scale, the prohibition of the possibility of self-caring in its positive dimension, that is, the responsibility and ethical commitment to cultivating the humanity of the individual and learning to see oneself and the other as simultaneously ego and 'alter' - people in constant historical and social processes of becoming, and of being more. This expression, which Paulo ^{Freire (1967}, ¹⁹⁸¹) regularly used in his pedagogical writings, aims to specify the anthropological and ethical nature of historical existence and the educability of human beings, who become fully human through their actions and concrete interactions.

In his pedagogical writings, ^{Freire (1967}, ¹⁹⁸¹, ¹⁹⁸⁷, ¹⁹⁹⁶) advocates for a liberating and humanizing educational practice centered on the autonomy of the subject, love, dialogue, the problematization of reality, and a commitment to overcoming the social and historical conditions of oppression, domination, and exploitation that reduce Brazilian and Latin American men and women to almost-objects (treated as machines, instruments, tools, or mere objects). In general, Freire conceives education as a historical-cultural phenomenon and a particular social practice, whose design marks the intentionality of acting upon the other, aiming to shape, position, and govern them in one direction or another - liberating or oppressive, ethical or colonizing - as a fundamental trait of its constitution. In this way, Freire understands that education is a social practice intentionally engaged with the formation of individuals.

It is important to mention that difference is essential to understand that the other exists and that we are not the same. ^{Freire (1987}) exceptionally addresses this issue and also emphasizes the importance of a liberating education to prevent the oppressed one from becoming oppressors.

As professionals and researchers committed to processes and pedagogical practices that shape individuals in the field of Education, we could reflect on how these events affect us either when we study and investigate, or when we choose to approach our objects of study through an epistemological domain. It seems pertinent to consider the position we assume in our studies and investigations, due to the conditions imposed by the theoretical-methodological approach we adopt and how we carry out our research.

The elaborated knowledge, language and care for the other in social relationships

In the face of what has been said, we reflect on AAD not only as a theoretical and methodological approach, but also as a way of life that brings various aspects of human formation through a perspective of caring for oneself and the other.

Although we may have specific understandings of the social complexity of language, archaeologically speaking, AAD can be approached in a unique way. One reason is that it has a specific mode of operation: instead of making interpretations, it analyzes and describes the findings discovered in the discursive field.

In this process, it is important to highlight that AAD abandons the desire to know about the discourse-object and the sources of the research, which is traditionally based on an interpretive filter - the principle of looking at the other (in this case, the object and sources) from one's own perspective, from one's place, or from a preferred point of view. Thus, AAD renounces interpretation because, in the hegemonically interpretive scenario, to understand the other means to frame, subjugate, or dominate them, so that the other would not be themselves, but rather what the investigator-interpreter wants them to be. These assumptions, within the realm of human formation, underpin and justify authoritarian, dominating, and colonizing educational practices.

In contrast to this approach, where the object and the source are transformed into what the researcher desires, into the reverse and opposite of what the interpreter intends to find, and into the expression of their prior knowledge imposed on the research findings, AAD adopts an analytical-descriptive procedure. In this procedure, the researcher positions themselves before the other-object and source by scrutinizing it, listening to it, admiring it, and analyzing it so that its peculiar way of being can be explicitly stated in the fullness of its particularity, singular existence and richness. This then describes and makes clear how it is placed in the exteriority of their existence.

Inspired by the archaeological modus operandi, which defines the nexus between the researcher-object and the researcher-source, we hypothesize that shifting this assumption to the daily intersubjective relationships of interpersonal nature that define, for example, the typical ego/‘alter’ relationships of the educational phenomenon, it would foster a series of behaviors and attitudes conducive to caring for the other and to establishing alterity as a principle and mode of living in an educational praxis situated within an ethical horizon.

In the light of what has been previously exposed and further deepening our objective, we now reflect a bit on AAD and its emancipatory, humanizing educational and sociocultural processes summarized in the expression "the care of the other". To put this in perspective, our analysis is based on the assumption that AAD encompasses a theoretical-methodological dimension deeply connected to the value of the other (both object and source), as the foundation of its analytical-descriptive investigations.

Through the experience of daily life or the careful analysis of broader social relations, we could learn that every intersubjective relationship always occurs with the mediation of something and that this, in both the simplest and the most complex situations, is always present in the interaction established between people: words and things, interests and desires, ideas and values, ideologies and worldviews, past, present, and future, frustrations and expectations, processes, practices, and social institutions - indeed, the culture of which we are constituted, the society we live in, the history we build.

In this context, language occupies a fundamental place among the range of mediations existing between the ego and the ‘alter,’ whether they are more general and rooted in the landscapes and historical, social, and cultural horizons, such as those defined by the logic of capital or the democratic rule of law, or they are more immediate and grounded in the reality of experiences and everyday circumstances, such as the educational practices lived in family, school, community spaces, etc.

Thus, regardless the reference we establish as a parameter for our discussion and analysis on language and its connections with human formation - history, everyday life, or the domains of structured knowledge that address this subject - we can affirm, with a satisfactory degree of certainty, the existential character of the objectivity of language as a human phenomenon (^{Foucault, 1990}, ²⁰⁰¹; ^{Palomo, 2001}). Language not only integrates our daily lives and existences as a kind of cultural artifact, but also shapes our worldviews and conceptions, structures our theories and practices, constitutes the subjectivity of individuals, encodes the knowledge we possess, and organizes the ways we express ourselves and interact with others.

In this view, although language is a social complex that integrates and constitutes social relations and the subjectivities of individuals, from the perspective of elaborated knowledge, not all domains, distinct from the traditional ones, that address the problem of language, recognize it as a fundamental theoretical-methodological premise of their investigations, nor grant it the status it should have within the scope of their approaches.

However, we explicitly find not only the problem of language and communication within the scope of the Theory of Symbolic Violence (TSV) by ^{Bourdieu and Passeron (1982}), and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) by Rosenberg (2006), but also the connection between language and education, which are implicated in the formation of individuals within a society marked by the hegemony of individualistic and violent social relations.

In the sociological domain of the Theory of Symbolic Violence (TSV), which significantly influenced the understanding of Brazilian researchers and educators in the 1970s and 1980s, its investigations demonstrated that, - in societies organized around the interests of dominant groups and classes such as the neoliberal society we live in - symbolic violence is conceived as a naturalized action that is carried out through specific communicative relations, socially established with the exercise of arbitrary power that aims to “[...] impose meanings and impose them as legitimate ones [...]” (^{Bourdieu & Passeron, 1982}, p. 19)¹³.

With this in mind, the investigations of the aforementioned researchers help us to understand this event and to denounce the existence of the cultural phenomenon of domination as a historical form of hegemonic value manifestation where the ego to detriment of the 'alter' is centered, the violence would consist in the domination of a group or class over another, and the culture imposition of the one who is more economically and politically powerful.

Seen in this light, the exercise of violence occurs as much because of the arbitrariness specificity of the communicated cultural content as the natural imposition of the established communication. This dual aspect eliminates any possibility of dialogue, recognition of differences, respect for the other's cultural identity, and intersubjective practices mediated through ethical and emancipatory communicative action.

On the horizon of the hegemonic paradigm of individualism and domination, the communication between the ego and the 'alter' is based on the strategic use of language and manipulative, disguised, and disengaged discourse from the knowledge of the real conditions of people's existence and from the asymmetries and structures inherent in the prevailing social formations.

We understand that one of the contributions of the Theory of Symbolic Violence (TSV) is its forceful denunciation, pointing out that one of the consequences of symbolic violence is the formation of an alienated public opinion, based on ignorance of the objective functioning of prevailing social relations, the denial of the possibilities of recognizing cultural diversity, and the naturalization of violence as something legitimate and inevitable. Through this, it conceals the fact that this state of affairs is a social and historical construction, where the legitimate exercise of symbolic violence is necessarily carried out by individuals vested with authority to represent and perform the pedagogical work required and to defend the interests of the economically, politically, and culturally dominant groups and classes in various institutional spaces of the state and civil society. In the words of the authors:

In a given social formation, the cultural arbitrariness that the power relations between the groups or classes, constituting that social formation place in a dominant position within the system of cultural arbitrariness, is the one that most fully expresses, although in an indirect manner, the objective (material and symbolic) interests of the dominant groups or classes (^{Bourdieu & Passeron, 1982}, p. 24)¹⁴.

In order to be fully realized, therefore, symbolic violence requires the establishment of communication relations mediated by language between the subjects, groups, and social classes involved, constituting a system made up of institutions, cultural arbitrariness, pedagogical authorities, and pedagogical work that together form a system of violence.

Based on the Theory of Symbolic Violence (TSV), we conclude that the language mediating the communicative action of capitalism and, consequently, of neoliberalism, is configured as a social complex that constitutes the cultural conditions necessary for the exercise of symbolic power. In other words, as a characteristic of the social domination paradigm, it influences the imposition of a universe of meanings considered legitimate, valid, and accepted by the dominant social groups and classes. This framework shows the intersubjective relations in contemporary social formations between the ego and the alter.

Another domain of elaborated knowledge that recognizes the importance of language within communicative relationships, and helps us reflect on our educational practices, is Nonviolent Communication (NVC). According to NVC, communication will lack alterity whenever we instruct, threaten, advise, preach, interpret, evaluate, approve, disapprove, criticize, insult, ridicule, or question in a conversation.

On the basis of the hegemony of a culture of domination, the theme of non-violence is particularly important nowadays. With self-observation, we would notice that, on a daily basis, many of us act in violent ways to some extent - though there are certainly exceptions. Not physical violence is then the central issue, but the subtle ones: since there are many forms of violence we do not even notice, and may cause damage as great, or even greater, than physical violence itself.

There is also significant violence in language. For instance, our speaking is often loaded with judgments, impositions, and a lack of empathy. On the other hand, there is psychological violence which causes deep traumas in the individual who receives it, and symbolic violence which oppresses and belittles the individual.

Among many things Mahatma Gandhi learned from his grandfather, Arun Gandhi (2006) said that one of them was "[...] to understand the depth and breadth of nonviolence and to recognize that we are all violent and need to make a qualitative change in our attitudes" (Arun Gandhi apud ^{Rosemberg, 2006}, p. 14)¹⁵. To help his grandson understand this aspect of qualitative change in our attitudes, Mahatma Gandhi taught him to draw a genealogical tree of violence:

Every night, he helped me to analyze the events of the day [...] - and place them on the tree under the headings ‘physical’ (violence in which physical force was used) or ‘passive’ (violence where the suffering was more emotional in nature). A few months later, I had covered one wall of my room with acts of ‘passive’ violence, which my grandfather described as more insidious than ‘physical’ violence. He explained that, eventually, passive violence generated anger in the victim who, as an individual or as a member of a collective, responded violently. In other words, it is passive violence that triggers the incidence of physical violence. Since we do not understand or analyze this concept, all efforts for peace bear no fruit, or only achieve a temporary peace (Arun Gandhi apud ^{Rosemberg, 2006}, p. 14, emphasis added)¹⁶.

In this context, ^{Rosemberg (2006}) presents the questions that form the basis of nonviolent communication and argues that it is in our inner nature to give and receive compassionately. Thus, in the individualism where some exploit others, he asks: “What happens that disconnects us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively toward others?” (^{Rosemberg, 2006}, p. 19)¹⁷. From this question, ^{Rosemberg (2006}) raises another: “And conversely, what allows some people to remain connected to their compassionate nature even in the most painful circumstances?” (^{Rosemberg, 2006}, p. 19)¹⁸. On this matter, we highlight a statement from the author regarding the importance of language in establishing nonviolence.

While studying the factors that affect our ability to remain compassionate, I was struck by the crucial role of language and the use of words. Since then, I have identified a specific approach to communication - speaking and listening - that leads us to open our hearts, connecting with ourselves and others in such a way that allows our natural compassion to bloom up (^{Rosemberg, 2006}, p. 21)¹⁹.

According to ^{Pelizzoli's (2012}) perspective, the act of communication is the apex of “[...] the fact that life establishes itself as a relation” (Pelizzoli, 2012, p. 5)²⁰. In this sense, the author understands that we are beings in a vital and systemic world, where individuals find themselves when they are in relation to their body and soul - “Ich bin du wenn ich bin ich” - I am you when I am myself” (Pelizzoli, 2012, p. 4)²¹. Thus, the author considers a phrase essential and that summarizes this view well: “Beyond right and wrong, there is a place: only there will we meet” (Pelizzoli, 2012, p. 5)²². Speaking of ethics refers to the question of alterity - and when this happens, something occurs within the being - a subtle awakening of compassion that, “[...] beyond our forced normose, there is the possibility to love and to be loved” (Pelizzoli, 2012, p. 5)²³.

As mentioned earlier, by taking into account the assumptions of the elaborated knowledge within the scope of TSV and NVC as reasonable parameters for reflecting on the relevance of language as a human phenomenon, and its connections with the education of individuals and social groups throughout their lives and existences, we can conclude that language is a mediation of the ego/‘alter’ relations and, therefore, constitutes the educational processes aimed at the formation of individuals.

The listening to others and the emptying of oneself

Considering what has been said about the necessary social construction of intersubjective relationships mediated by language, based on the paradigm of alterity, we understand that the establishment of communication and the realization of educational practices require the overcoming of multiple conceptions and practices centered on the ego to a certain extent and in distinct ways. This implies, ultimately, the daily exercise of positioning oneself before others with willingness and availability to understand them from their way of being.

In this process, we reflect on the need to understand the constructive meaning of emptying out social conceptions and practices such as educational ones to prevent our encounter with a way of living based on the care of the self and the other.

One example is the exercise of emptying out which involves reflecting on the status quo. If we analyze, for example, the history of the capitalist world, we see that the accumulation of material goods is a hallmark of the hegemonic status quo, to the point that we learn to see ourselves and others through the lens of possession. In capitalism logic, we are what we own, and in neoliberal logic, the fault of the excluded lies with them. In this sense, the culture of consumption and the accumulation of things produces a type of subject who has great problems letting out certain unnecessary possessions, donating or sharing them.

This fact can be easily observed empirically when we look at our homes and closets, for example, and notice the amount of things that have been there for a long time, which we no longer use and probably will never use again. Furthermore, we see how much food is wasted and thrown away every day. In general, the waste occurs at various levels all over the world, whereas there are regions where many people suffer due to food scarcity.

However, it should be emphasized that we are not always aware of letting out certain things in order to make room for new things and that go beyond the logic of the status quo, which elevates material possessions as essential to life and to happiness. In traditions that practice educational meditation, such as Zen Buddhism, detaching from things is a crucial learning since our minds also tend to accumulate things as indispensable, whether they are positive or negative.

Throughout life, we accumulate opinions, fears, judgments, traumas, sadness, ideas, and other issues that obstruct our thinking and end up compromising our learning and self-knowledge. These accumulated elements harden us, crystallizing views and behaviors that often become toxic, potentially leading to psychosomatic illnesses²⁴.

^{Weil, Leloup, and Crema (2003}) discuss what they call "[...] normose, the pathology of normality"²⁵. The authors define normose as a suffering that prevents us from truly being ourselves because consensus and conformity obstruct the expression of our inner desires (Weil et al., 2003). They quote Krishnamurti, stating that "[...] liberation of the known requires much courage and maturity. The fear of not being like others triggers the fear of knowing oneself" (Weil et al., 2003, p. 72)²⁶. They also note that there are many fears that permeate present-day society such as the fear of rejection, which Rollo May identifies as the fear of ostracism: "Erich Fromm referred to the fear of freedom; Eric Berne pointed to the fear of intimacy; Alexander Lowen denounced the fear of life" (Weil et al., 2003, p. 98)²⁷.

There is a poem written by Viviane Mosé²⁸ that describes and clarifies what we mean about the importance of learning to empty ourselves of the accumulation of material and symbolic goods, thoughts, and/or toxic patterns:

Most of the diseases people have are poems trapped. Abscesses, tumors, nodules, stones [...]. They are calcified words, poems without flow. Even blackheads, pimples, ingrown hairs, constipation [...]. They could have been poems once, but not [...]. People get sick from reason, from loving trapped words. A good word is a liquid word, flowing in the form of tears. Tears are melted pain, hardened pain is a tumor. Tears are melted anger, hardened anger is a tumor. Tears are melted joy, hardened joy is a tumor. Tears are a melted person, a hardened person is a tumor. Time hardened is a tumor, time melted is a poem. And you can pull the hardened poems from your body with vegetable spoils, medicinal oils, with the tips of your fingers, of your nails. You can pull a poem with cuticle clippers, with a comb, with a needle. You can pull a poem with basil ointment, with massage, with hydration. But don’t use a scalpel, almost never. In case of difficult poems, you can dance. Dance is a way to soften the hardened poems in the body. A way to release them from folds, from the tips of the toes, from the nails. These are the cut-poems, the chest-poems, the eye-poems, the sex-poems, the eyelash-poems [...] (Mosé, 2023)²⁹.

The ancient educational practice of meditation teaches us that we must open our mind and empty it of outdated ideas so that new perspectives can be observed and learned. In the tradition of Zen Buddhism, accessing knowledge requires a position similar to that of a teacup: it must be emptied in order for more tea to be poured into it. A full cup offers no space for anything else. On the other hand, an empty cup is not a wasted opportunity or a denial of the cup itself: it can be filled every day and emptied as needed.

A story from the 19th century conveys this Zen Buddhist teaching about emptying the cup. This story is recorded by ^{Miklos (2010}) in his dissertation and ^{Ribeiro (2016}) in his thesis. In the story, there is a dialogue between Nan-in, the Zen master, and a university professor who came to visit him. The professor was interested in Zen Buddhism and had already read many books on the subject, but he could not understand why Master Nan-in was so admired for his wisdom and the attentive way he listened to others. But when they finally met each other and started talking, the professor frequently interrupted the master to express his own convictions, showing his difficulty in listening and learning the lessons that Nan-in was trying to convey.

At that moment, the Zen master offered him tea and poured it calmly. It is significant that when the cup had become completely full, Nan-in continued pouring tea into it. The professor could not hold it back and asked if Nan-in had not noticed that the cup was already full and that the tea was spilling over onto the table. The master then stopped pouring and said that the professor was filled just like the cup, with preconceived opinions and concepts. Nan-in then asked how the professor could learn new teachings, new ideas and perspectives if he had no space for them. Once again, the master comprehensively said that the pursuit of knowledge required the professor to always empty his cup. The professor looked at the master in astonishment, realizing the depth of meaning in his words.

In short, the main idea we wish to emphasize from this story - the metaphor of emptying the cup in Buddhist teaching - refers to the fact that learning something, whatever it may be, in educational processes intentionally aimed at the formation of individuals such as meditation, requires we can be open to willing and available to listening. This then demands the effort of not allowing our previous knowledge to block the process of truly listening to the other.

In light of this, caring for the other, which presupposes the ability and the attitude to listen to and understand them from their own conditions of existence, is something we can learn. The development of an individual who assumes a position of listening to the other, of emptying oneself, requires systematic pedagogical work. It is not a simple expression or a result of chance.

The AAD as a way of listening

Indeed, the Buddhist metaphor of the full and empty cup not only serves as a rhetorical strategy to understand the importance of listening to others, but also stands as an emblematic example of the teachings of the ancient Eastern educational practice. We emphasize that the metaphor, as a figure of speech, is a widely used argumentative device for conveying something intended, within the scope of social processes of an educational nature that aim at learning like those experienced in schools. However, we also recognize its limitations, as when it comes to knowledge produced on a specific subject and formed by sets of unique relationships. Here, we consider it as an enlightening perspective on the issue at hand.

In other words, one of the aspects of a metaphor is to speak about something based on the features of something else. Thus, we end up talking about that thing instead of the thing we actually want to. Regarding the discourses, it is appropriate to talk about them from themselves, not from something else. This means that an analytical-descriptive argument should avoid the typical similarities of metaphors. Whereas in teaching the use of metaphors is reasonable; in research it is not. Even here, therefore, we believe that this specific metaphor is important for understanding what we want to clarify.

In a certain sense, the Buddhist metaphor of the full and empty cup represents the objective knowledge that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This symbolizes a device for overcoming the subjective and cultural elements that block our openness to look at and listen to different knowledge from our own, as well as the willingness we would have to understand other worldviews and ways of living.

Certainly, the shift from "I" to "he," from the ego to the "alter," implies recognizing that the other is not, cannot, and should not be an extension of oneself, a mere mirror of the ego. On the other hand, it means understanding that when we address the issue of emptying oneself, we are not advocating for the negation or silencing of ourselves.

Emptying oneself does not mean announcing the sacrifice of the self in the face of the other, like a ritual of suffering in which we die to the other be born, or like a macabre game where the death of one would be the condition for another's lives. Not at all! On the contrary, the perspective here is to learn how to empty ourselves of the noise of communication, to silence the signs that block - without ceasing to be who we are - to listen to our surroundings, so that we can place ourselves before the 'alter' in such a way that we can admire it in the fullest possible extent of its existence.

When we delve into the archaeological analysis of discourse (AAD), based on the premise of acting in function of the other and guided by the perspective of alterity, with the aim of reflecting on its potential to contribute to the formation of a researcher, who assumes the position of subject in listening to the other (objects and sources) in their epistemological and archaeological relations, as well as in their everyday interpersonal relationships, we start thinking about the possible connections between the domain of AAD and the ways of living that effectively and positively recognize and value the issue of alterity. In other words, we contemplate the educational potential of archaeological research regarding the researcher.

Nevertheless, we understand that it is not appropriate to elaborate deeply and extensively on AAD as a theory of discourse, - since this topic can be found, accessed, and learned elsewhere in more suitable places - it seems necessary and relevant to briefly touch upon at least some points that can help clarify this issue.

One reason is to highlight an apparent obviousness: AAD is a theoretical-methodological approach that is exclusively concerned with investigating discourse, regardless of its type. When making discourse the fundamental object of its investigations, AAD treats it as both the generic object of all research conducted and the central analytical-operational category of the singular discursive formations chosen and defined as the objects of research.

Secondly, AAD finds it necessary to explain the semantic particularity and theoretical singularity of the word 'discourse' and its specifically archaeological use, so that it cannot be confused with other meanings attributed and employed by domains distinct from AAD. This then tends to conceive 'discourse' as a sign, that is, as something that stands in place of something else, and not to analyze it in its own instance, as Foucault warns:

"[...] it is not about neutralizing discourse here, turning it into a sign of something else and cutting through its thickness to find what silently lies beyond it; on the contrary, it is about maintaining it in its consistency, making it emerge in the complexity that is its own." (^{Foucault, 2008}, p. 53, our emphasis)³⁰.

In this statement, there are two important aspects we can understand in the context of the relationship between the Archaeological Discourse Analysis (AAD), as well as the ways of living based on alterity as an educational principle. One of these aspects concerns overcoming the threshold of the sign, which implies abandoning the idea of discourse as a sign and embracing the discourse as an enunciation (^{Carlos, 2017}, ²⁰²¹). By maintaining the necessary distinctions, this establishes the constructive attitude of relating to the other from their own instance, thus avoiding putting oneself in the place of the other or placing the other in our own position.

Moreover, as there is no possibility for the sign to be the thing it represents, we would also face serious difficulties in understanding the other through the lens of our own position. If the formative-educational premise of alterity is based on the recognition of identity and difference, it would be impossible for the ego to place itself in the ‘alter’ position and vice versa, without resorting to the interpretive device of reducing the alter to the ego, the other to the self, the you to the I. Such reduction would be a strategy to naturalize colonization, domination, control, and the denial of the other and its own sociocultural instance.

The third important thing is the term that encompasses a complex series of elements that delimit and identify it as something constituted by bundles of determined relations articulated among themselves to organize particular enunciative orders through specific regularities. These aspects of the archaeological nature of discourse lead to distinct existences and functions from what happens with the sign and, consequently, to how it is defined, analyzed, and described in the domain of AAD as enunciation.

The fourth important thing is to emphasize the idea of discourse as enunciation that requires an analysis focused on the very instance of the discourse itself, not on something it suggests, recalls, refers to, holds between the lines, hides in the rhetorical and creative play of words and arguments, or it waits for someone enlightened by their intelligence and wisdom to discover, unveil, access, and reveal it. In this sense, discourse-as-enunciation is not a sign, because its semantics does not include the notion of a sign as something that stands in place of another thing.

The fifth important thing is the contact with the sources, which is driven by the analyst’s desire to know about certain objects and requires the act of learning to read and listen to what the source is saying. This idea is fundamental to an archaeological analysis of discourse. In this process, we develop the educational practice of attention and care with what we read and listen to. This listening, therefore, throws us into the instance of what is actually said, and not into the game of assumptions about what we think the other intends to say.

Finally, the sixth important thing is that AAD significantly contributes to the development of learning patience, respect, tolerance, and the willingness and readiness to listen to the other. One reason is that we do not consider interpretation as an archaeological investigative device, that is, as the modus operandi mediating the researcher-object and researcher-source relationship since the adopted procedure is analytical-descriptive. Thus, these are fundamental to educational perspectives of a democratic, liberating, and humanizing nature.

At this time, if we pose the question "emptying oneself of what?”, through an archaeological lens, the answer could be "of interpretation". In other words, for AAD, emptying oneself is not a random event, but a daily educational practice of epistemological suspension of interpretation. In the process of analyzing the object mediated by sources, we suspend our prior knowledge in order to engage with what is presented, navigating and constituting the statements and sayings recorded in the sources. Thus, emptying oneself of interpretation becomes a necessary condition for the educational practice of listening and archaeological reading.

In light of what has been exposed, we understand that emptying oneself expresses a necessary presupposition and an educational practice aimed at learning to be better researchers and better people by dealing with respect and care, with criteria and methods, in relation to our objects, sources, and surroundings. We need to learn to think differently in certain situations and reflect, even, on how we can take better care of ourselves in the very act of caring for others and vice versa. Within the scope of archaeological investigations, rupture and transformation are part of the analytical-descriptive process of the object-discourse and, consequently, the education modes of the researcher situated within the realm of analytical-archaeological discourse investigations.

Final considerations

To conclude this text, we revisit our central issue: what are the possibilities for AAD to establish educational practices and processes grounded in alterity, as a counterpoint to the individualistic neoliberal logic?

Based on the analysis and reflection conducted, we can indeed say that there are interesting possibilities in which AAD contributes to the establishment of educational practices from the perspective of alterity. In this way, we would like to emphasize, in line with the critique and proposition of the Theory of Symbolic Violence (TSV) and Nonviolent Communication (NVC), that AAD stands out as a promising domain, a viable theoretical alternative for analyzing the discursive order of violence which is embedded in communicative action. Furthermore, it can be appropriated and applied as a theoretical-methodological device to investigate the symbolic and enunciative elements that shape language and its uses, as well as discourse and its practices, which are rooted in the denial of alterity. This denial is socially cultivated, naturalized, and circulated in the context of intersubjective and institutional communicative relations within contemporary neoliberal frameworks.

Considering that the sign is presented as a necessary assumption for the emergence of discourse, AAD treats language as the place where discourse resides, exists, functions, and recognizes the sign as the threshold of the enunciation’s existence. For this reason, although discourse is the object of archaeological investigation by excellence, the process of analysis and description of its mode of existence requires, preliminarily, a thorough work of excavation of the source texts, the signifiers and the meanings they register, and the construction of themes and arguments they encompass, so that the knowledge activated, circulated, and utilized through the mediation of language can be elucidated.

As we certainly see from now, AAD is concerned with analyzing what is presented, whether through the sign, speech, writing, images, or the gestures of bodily communication. Because of this, we understand that different types of discursive analyses could be carried out regarding the spoken, the written, the visual, the bodily expression, and the events of everyday life.

All things effectively said about something can be the object of discourse and, therefore, analyzed and explained. As Foucault (1987) pointed out, emphasizing the possibilities of investigations he called "new archaeologies", as long as it is known what is placed in the studies and research of new archaeologies are discourses and knowledge, the possibility or not of saying something about something emerges. This idea is definitely fundamental to AAD.

Situated within the theoretical-methodological approach of AAD, when analyzing and describing a given discourse, we aim to clarify its mode of existence and functioning. In this endeavor, AAD rejects interpretation as a device for handling language and discourse, because whenever we interpret, in one way or another, we elide the discourse itself which ultimately ends up being treated as a sign and identified as the discourse.

Unlike the interpretation, archaeological description aims to clarify how a discourse presents itself as such and how it is organized to say what it says, and not something else. In this process, it is not appropriate to impose our perspectives, opinions, preferences, desires, conceptions, ideologies, or what we would like it to be or think it should be naturalized behaviors of those who interpret.

As an example, we can say that investigating any given narrative means, within the scope of the AAD, analyzing the set of elements presented in the speech, their correlations with specific domains, the sets of notions the person activates to say what they say, the position they assume, as a speaking one, in relation to the topics addressed, the fields of knowledge activated, and their specific instances.

The knowledge activated and put into play in a discursive order by certain discursive practices can, argumentatively, draw on both common knowledge and more elaborate knowledge, whether related to social instances and institutions or to various cultural and non-hegemonic practices. All of this can be mixed together in the set of things that are pronounced and considered within a given narrative. In the domain of AAD, the speeches lead us to the discourse and the knowledge effectively placed in the communicative actions of the speaking subjects. There is no doubt that there are no social relations, whether interpersonal or institutional, without discourse. This fact can be easily verified in the daily observation of the intense proliferation of discourses that cross various places and times, circumstances and practices, instances and subjects of all kinds and positions.

Regarding communicative relations based on the language of violence, we can explicitly identify them in cartoons, movies of various genres, both physical and virtual games, soap operas and TV series, political and judicial disputes, media advertisements, social media clashes, historical narratives of religious traditions, textbooks and their national policies, and, ultimately, in the everyday speech of people when they communicate and address each other.

Therefore, when we speak either generally or specifically about discourse, we are not talking about something from a fantastic, imaginary, or detached world from reality. At all times, discourses impact the way we live, how we conceive things, how we orient our actions, as well as what we believe in and what we consider to be true, false, right, or wrong. Discourse weaves subjectivities and constructs truths, which is why ^{Foucault (2008}) states that it is not only an object of analysis and study but also an object of desire, dispute, and interest of various kinds.

For the earlier reasons outlined, AAD shares the current understanding that, within the prevailing social relations such as neoliberal and hegemonic ones, both saying and things said can be intimately linked, on one hand, to a type of communicative action grounded in and fueled by discursive practices that frame the other, the different, the unequal, and the antagonistic within an egocentric, narcissistic, meritocratic, and dominating worldview; and, on the other hand, to an alternative discursive game of resistance and insurgency that counters violent discourse and communication, and it is committed to establishing a peaceful, ethical discursive order, functioning as a framework for the recognition, valuation, and care of the other in favor of their identity and citizenship singularity: this is manifested in a way of life.

Displacing the sign of violence and its enunciative discursivities favors as much the systematic production of knowledge about communicative action in general, as the self-knowledge of our personal ways of saying what we think and want, or do not want and do not think; utterances that, in one way or another, we effectively say. Emptying oneself and caring for oneself and the other thus require, in the archaeological sense, understanding the discourse that constitutes the language we use in the various times and places in which we are engaged in communication processes.

At this time, the educability experience of the researcher-individual emerges, who becomes involved with the necessity of learning investigative ways of conceiving, saying, and acting that are grounded in alterity during the course of research, which is a fundamental archaeological premise that drives and regulates the epistemological relationship between the researcher and their object and sources of research. The learnings of being patient, respectful, tolerant, available, willing, and decentered in the face of listening to the other and what they have to say, all these are developed throughout the process of education provided during the design and execution of archaeological research. It is significant that these learnings ultimately constitute the individual who assumes the position of researcher. Moreover, without these learnings, the researcher would not be able to determine the specificity of their enunciative object or choose their excavation sources adequately, nor would they be able to archaeologically analyze the intended discursive order. In this perspective, we understand that the AAD constitutes a formative domain for people, that is, a domain in which alterity is learned through the execution of research.

In conclusion, based on the analysis stated, we affirm that ADD, indeed, presents significant contributions for the establishment of educational practices and processes grounded in alterity.