WHEN DOES THE RESEARCHER EMERGE? EXPERIENCE, DOUBT, AND THE PERMANENT PROCESS OF BECOMING IN GRADUATE EDUCATION

Abstract

This article discusses the constitution of the researcher by asking what changes in the relationship with doubt and not-knowing while someone learns to conduct research. It develops a qualitative, autobiographical, and interpretive investigation whose corpus is a letter written by the first author on June 11, 2026, during the first months of his master's program and sent to the program coordination. The document, produced before the conception of the article, is analyzed in dialogue with Paulo Freire, Jorge Larrosa, Christine Delory-Momberger, Marie-Christine Josso, and Maria da Conceição Passeggi, articulating incompleteness, experience, narrative, and education. The analysis examines insecurities upon entering graduate school, responsibility for what is stated, reading, writing, academic dialogue, and revision of the research path. The results indicate that there is no linear passage from doubt to certainty. Instead, the objects on which doubt operates become broader. It is concluded that becoming a researcher involves learning to recognize not-knowing, delimit it, and transform it into an object of intellectual work, progressively assuming responsibility for the questions, choices, interpretations, and limits involved in knowledge production.