Practices based on other knowledge: Terreiro as a path to decolonial education

Abstract

This article addresses the construction of an anti-racist and decolonial education grounded in the knowledge originating from casas de santo (Afro-Brazilian religious communities). It seeks to develop an artistic pedagogical practice anchored in the knowledge, cosmoperceptions, and forms of biointeraction found in terreiros, as well as in the aesthetics that characterize these territories. The theoretical articulation aims to bring decolonial, Afro-diasporic, and macumbeiro thought closer to research carried out with children in school contexts. Methodologically, the proposal is based on the understanding of the ground (chão) as an expression of territoriality, recognizing it as knowledge constituted in and through the sacred territory. It further proposes the creation of artistic experiences drawn from elements of terreiro culture, conceiving them as possibilities for producing reference universes or Afro-referenced existential territories. This work is sustained by the defense of attentive listening to childhoods as a foundational principle of a pedagogical praxis committed to social transformation and to the construction of an epistemology developed in dialogue with children, from an anti-racist and decolonial perspective.