Our aim was to discuss the construction of knowledge in Applied Linguistics by focusing on literacy and considering the tensions between local knowledge, the academic field, and governmental programs such as the Observatório da Educação (Education Observatory). We describe a teacher training process within the scope of this program that is geared toward Basic Education and which is conducted in a public school on the Triple Frontier (Brazil/Paraguay/Argentina). In theoretical and methodological terms, the results of our reflections about literacy practices, which are sustained by ethnographic studies, show the possibilities of reversing dissonances arising from epistemological conditions for constructing collective, reflexive, and critical knowledge. Language as a social practice, which is expressive of the struggles and differences between social groups, represents one of the great challenges for constructing shared knowledge in Applied Linguistics.
Applied Linguistics; epistemology; literacy; ethnography