Unpacking argumentation: Identity and epistemic tensions in higher education

This study unpacks three central literacy practices in argumentative writing within Higher Education: the formulation of a stance, the search for reliable bibliographic sources, and the development of argumentative frameworks. Theoretically, it is situated within academic literacies and recent studies in Latin America that adopt a sociocultural, critical, and social justice approach, understanding writing as a social practice. Methodologically, this ethnographic research follows a comparative trajectory of eight students in a university course on argumentative writing, based on cyclical conversations about their progress, a critical analysis of these conversations, and a review of institutional documents. The results conclude that students strive to produce writing that aligns with an objectivist vision of knowledge that is reproduced and promoted in higher education. This institutional proposal relegates their personal voices to the background and encourages “administrative-academic” identities focused on the collection and management of “reliable sources” and the development of argumentative frameworks that operationalize epistemic production in these literacy spaces. Thus, the research contributes to the questioning of literacies that from social justice, which have become established as hegemonic practices in higher education.