Capoeira, território ancestral: caminhos para uma educação física escolar decolonial e de valorização da cultura de matriz africana

Abstract

This research sought to understand capoeira as a decolonial pedagogical practice in the context of School Physical Education. Capoeira, as an Afro-Brazilian cultural expression, constituted in the triad of fight, game and dance, is analyzed as an ancestral territory of memory, resistance and production of knowledge, historically forged in the confrontation with the colonial and Eurocentric structures that cross Brazilian education. Based on dialogues with Freire's pedagogy and with the Afro-Pindoramic philosophy of Antônio Bispo dos Santos, the research recognizes Capoeira as an ancestral technology of education, capable of tensioning hegemonic logics and promoting other ways of teaching, learning and existing. It is a qualitative research, developed from a pedagogical intervention carried out in a class of the 6th grade of Elementary School, through the implementation of a didactic unit of Capoeira. The intervention consisted of 14 classes, organized in order to articulate bodily experiences, musicality, orality, conversation circles and games, valuing ancestral knowledge, student protagonism and dialogue as an educational principle. The data were produced from field diaries, class records, students' speeches and observations of the researcher, who is also part of the process as a teacher and capoeirista. The analyses show that the experiences with Capoeira enabled the tensioning of Eurocentric conceptions present in the students' imagination, especially with regard to what is called the Global South, especially Africa and Brazil, black culture and body practices of African origin. It was observed the broadening of the students' perceptions about Capoeira beyond a technical or sportsmanic practice, starting to recognize it as a cultural, historical and political expression, associated with ancestry, belonging and black resistance. The students' speeches and interactions indicate transformations in the meanings of identity, in the strengthening of ethnic-racial relations and in the construction of a more critical reading of racism and the processes of cultural erasure in the school context. It is concluded that Capoeira, when inserted in a critical and contextualized way in School Physical Education, contributes to the construction of a decolonial, anti-racist pedagogical practice committed to the appreciation of the culture of African matrix. The research points to the power of Capoeira as an ancestral river that crosses the school, opening paths for a liberating, dialogical education rooted in popular and Afro-Brazilian knowledge.