Knowledge production and transmission in kaingang collectives

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on the relationships between the shamanic system, production and transmission of knowledge and corporeality, based on an ethnography with bilingual teachers from the state school network of Basic Education in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and together with kaingang indigenous scholars and intellectuals. Likewise, this work intends to resume the discussion of ethnographic learning practices during the years 2013, 2014, and 2015 in the context of workshops and continuing education meetings for kaingang teachers during the Indigenous Knowledge at School, UFRGS Nucleus, analyzing the current schooling processes in kaingang collectives in southern Brazil. From the discussion of their relational socio-cosmo-ontology, two conceptions of kaingang knowledge production and transmission are presented and analyzed, which coexist and are complexly interrelated and connected: a cosmo-ontological tradition (production and transmission of knowledge from the agencies exercised among all those existing in the cosmos – human and extra-human beings) and an oral-iconographic tradition, which is consolidated in actions, the learning of which conforms to social practices, rituals and images, and which emphasizes reciprocity between humans, based on the knowledge and practices of their elders, sages, and intellectuals.

Keywords
Kaingang socio-cosmo-ontology; Knowledge production and transmission; Shamanism; Body and person; Indigenous school education