Intercultural-action-formation and guarani bodily practices in school Physical Education: a decolonial arrow in the anti-racist struggle

Abstract

The text presents the articulation between Guarani bodily practices and the theoretical-methodological perspective of intercultural-action-formation from the Body, Education, and Culture Research Group (Coeduc), within the development of the project “Maicé Ariribá: ancestral knowledge and education,” carried out at the Ariribá Municipal Educational Center (Cem Ariribá) in Balneário Camboriú-SC. By addressing indigenous themes in southern Brazil, the study poses a challenge to the logic of coloniality and the stereotypes produced by Eurocentric school education, historically associated with discriminatory practices against original peoples in the children's schooling process. In this direction, Guarani bodily practices — present in games, toys and play, graphisms, origin myths, toponymies, among other cultural manifestations — functioned as a “decolonial arrow” to open fissures in the educational-colonial structure, while intercultural-action-formation offered principles and paths for this journey, namely: territoriality, horizontality, dialogicity, epistemic plurality, and political-pedagogical commitment. From this intercultural and interdisciplinary movement with fifth-grade students, the project's results were expressed in the understanding of the connections between Guarani history and culture and the very constitution of Balneário Camboriú, recorded in scientific reports and disseminated in the Ariribá Exhibition of education for ethnic-racial relations. The reflections produced by the children were analyzed under the coding categories of Bogdan and Biklen (1994), revealing five axes: 1) Family-society-education relationship; 2) Ancestral origins and Brazilian identity; 3) Valorization and respect for indigenous traditions; 4) Playfulness and learning; and 5) The indigenous presence in the city's daily life. Thus, the project created moments of reflection on the experiences with the Guarani People and on the discriminatory mechanisms that still mark their trajectories, mediated by bodily practices and by a theoretical-methodological orientation aimed at confronting the dimensions of racism directed at indigenous peoples, to give visibility to indigenous histories and cultures as a constitutive part of the history and culture of Balneário Camboriú-SC.