Pataxó indigenous education: between dystopias and utopias

Abstract

This article reflects on the conceptions of indigenous school education that have been built by Pataxós educators from Reserva da Jaqueira − Coroa Vermelha, located in the municipality of Santa Cruz Cabrália (Bahia), exploring their links with the social and political contexts of that ethnicity, since the deterritorialization of the past to the (re)territorialization of the present, in line with the new projects involving the installation and implementation of the indigenous school and other cultural activities. The reflection, undertaken in a historical perspective, focuses on three moments in the configuration of these relationships: the first comprises the period marked by the policies of integration and assimilation of indigenous communities to the dominant culture; the second covers the construction of public policies for indigenous schools; and the third is linked to the construction of the educational project by the Pataxós communities in Bahia. The ethnographic analysis allows us to see the constitution of a specific, differentiated, multicultural and bilingual education, the result of demands and the awareness of this people, who have understood school education as an instrument of struggle and exercise of otherness.