Abstract

The Meeting of Knowledges

The Meeting of Knowledges (MK) proposal in Brazilian universities is an initiative of the National Institute of Science and Technology for Inclusion in Higher Education and Research at Universidade de Brasília and belongs to a broader movement of criticism of the westernized character of universities¹1 Grosfoguel R. A estrutura do conhecimento nas universidades ocidentalizadas: racismo/sexismo epistêmico e os quatro genocídios/epistemicídios do longo século XVI. Soc Estado. 2016; 31(1):25-49. and innovations in the interaction with other knowledge in extension initiatives²2 Silva LD, Vieira AM, Tambosi Filho E. Curricularização da extensão universitária: indicadores de avaliação para os cursos de administração e contabilidade. Avaliação (Campinas). 2024; 29:e024001.. Implemented in 2010, it aims to recognize leaders of traditional knowledge by inserting them as teachers in regular courses, research, supervision, and participation in academic boards of public universities. In 2022, MK occurred in 28 universities in Brazil, involving 243 leaders from several territories in varying areas of academic knowledge³3 Vianna LCR. Encontro de Saberes: o espírito do tempo e o estado da arte de uma proposta de transformação social. Pragmatizes. 2023; 13(25):267-301.. These shamans, artisans, traditional architects, popular musicians, raizeiras, Indigenous reforesters, and artists are invited to teach regular courses at university in partnership with professors from varying areas of knowledge-health, environment, architecture, music, human sciences, among others⁴4 Carvalho JJ, Flórez J, Martínez M. El Encuentro de Saberes: hacia una universidad pluriepistémica. In: Ayala NAC, Restrepo CA, editoras. Saberes nómadas: derivas del pensamiento proprio. Bogota: Universidad Central; 2017. p. 183-208.. MK represented a response to the movement of leaders toward epistemic diversity in Brazilian educational institutions as demanded at the 2005 National Meeting of Public Policies for Popular Cultures and the First South American Meeting of Popular Cultures in 2006. Such movements contributed to the elaboration of an interministerial ordinance⁵5 Brasil. Ministério da Cultura. Ministério da Educação. Portaria Normativa Interministerial MinC/MEC n° 1 de 04/10/2007. Estabelece as diretrizes para cooperação entre o Ministério da Cultura e o Ministério da Educação. Diário Oficial da União. 8 Nov 2007. that incorporated leaders at various levels of education and in the establishment of a federal law⁶6 Brasil. Presidência da República. Lei n° 11.645, de 10 de Março de 2008. Altera a Lei n° 9.394, de 20 de Dezembro de 1996, modificada pela Lei n° 10.639, de 9 de Janeiro de 2003. Diário Oficial da União. 11 Mar 2008. that mandated the study of Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian history and culture in primary and secondary education. This fight against epistemic injustice complements affirmative actions to expand the insertion of Black and Indigenous students in universities⁷7 Carvalho JJ. Notório saber para os mestres e mestras dos povos e comunidades tradicionais: uma revolução no mundo acadêmico brasileiro. Rev Univ Fed Minas Gerais. 2021; 28(1):54-77..

Under the MK perspective, these leaders are characterized by being the heads and sages, recognized by their communities as guardians and developers of traditional knowledge⁴4 Carvalho JJ, Flórez J, Martínez M. El Encuentro de Saberes: hacia una universidad pluriepistémica. In: Ayala NAC, Restrepo CA, editoras. Saberes nómadas: derivas del pensamiento proprio. Bogota: Universidad Central; 2017. p. 183-208.. As a rule, they belong to traditional peoples and communities⁸8 Calegare MGA, Higuchi MIG, Bruno ACS. Povos e comunidades tradicionais: das áreas protegidas à visibilidade política de grupos sociais portadores de identidade étnica e coletiva. Ambiente Soc. 2014; 17(3):115-34., characterized, according to Decree 6040/07⁹9 Brasil. Presidência da República. Decreto n° 6.040, de 7 de Fevereiro de 2007. Institui a Política Nacional de Desenvolvimento Sustentável dos Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais. Diário Oficial da União. 8 Fev 2007., as:

The diversity under the designation enables us to intuit concomitant epistemological pluralism from groups such as quilombolas, Indigenous people, fishermen, and other extractivists. These peoples converge in the importance they give to territory and territoriality¹⁰10 Ferreira J, Felício E. Por terra e território: caminhos da revolução dos povos no Brasil. Arataca: Teia dos Povos; 2021. and to what has been characterized as the epistemology of the living cosmos¹¹11 Carvalho JJ. O encontro de saberes nas artes e as epistemologias do cosmo vivo. In: Tugny RP, Gonçalves G, organizadores. Universidade popular e encontro de saberes. Salvador: EdUFBA; 2020. p. 475-508.-the use of sensitivity faculties and multidimensional perception as the required human abilities to know the world, expanding anthropocentric epistemologies and admitting a variety of languages of the other beings of the cosmos and natural phenomena¹²12 Carvalho JJ. El Encuentro de Saberes en las artes y las epistemologías del cosmos vivo. In: Tobar J, editor. Virus, revueltas y crisis: lecturas de la pandemia COVID-19 desde las epistemologías del cosmos vivo. Buenos Aires: CLACSO; 2022. p. 101-46..

The political and institutional recognition of knowledge, systematically “hidden” from Brazilian history, and the enrichment of the academic space, constituting a truly pluriepistemic university by including leaders of traditional communities and their ways of generating knowledge (overcoming attempts to translate or make them objects of study) constitute the main purposes of MK. According to Augustin de Tugny¹³13 Tugny A. Descolonizar as artes na universidade. In: Tugny RP, Gonçalves G, organizadores. Universidade popular e Encontro de Saberes. Salvador: EdUFBA; 2020. p. 509-30.,

Scientific and academic knowledge generally avoids the implication of its formulators, complying with the imperatives of objectivity and neutrality in search of truth. This knowledge also composes a discourse, language, and policy vital to legitimizing a social order that is marked by the eminently ideological project of colonialities in Brazil (as we will see later). Thus, the turn MK proposed, by focusing on the structure of academic power-knowledge, subverts, even if only occasionally, the hierarchy between epistemes based on racism subjectively affecting those who encounter these leaders. This progressive action aims to rebuild the political and pedagogical character of universities, enhancing their public and democratic function. In a country characterized by the asymmetry of peoples and knowledge, the proposal of a pluriepistemic university collectively collaborates to refound the Brazilian cultural ethos and individually rescue the multiple factors in the family trajectory of those involved in this process¹⁴14 Jardim RMM, Guimarães T. Uma tarefa política para a psicanálise brasileira. In: Dunker C, Maia H, Manoel J, organizadores. Marxismo, psicanálise, revolução. São Paulo: LavraPalavra; 2022. p. 89-117..

A pluriepistemic revolution in practice

The development of knowledge in Western sciences is closely related to the productive models in force in each historical period, including the relation between the scientific and academic fields with capitalism. According to Carvalho¹⁵15 Carvalho JJ, Kidoiale M, Carvalho EN, Costa SL. Sofrimento psíquico na universidade, psicossociologia e Encontro de saberes. Soc Estado. 2020; 35(1):135-62., historians such as Jacques Le Goff and Peter Burke say that, as late as the 11th century, the first European universities were closely linked to the rise of intellectual markets. Modern capitalism has strengthened this relation: science begins to offer the knowledge necessary to expand an increasingly globalized market that basis itself on exploiting peoples and nations. On the other hand, the European protagonism in this capitalist race determines its own knowledge as the universal reference of what is known as world-system¹⁶16 Wallerstein I. A análise dos sistemas-mundo como movimento do saber. In: Vieira PA, Vieira RL, Filomeno FA, organizadores. O Brasil e o capitalismo histórico: passado e presente na Análise dos Sistemas-Mundo. São Paulo: Cultura Acadêmica; 2012. p. 17-28., naturalizing a Eurocentric social, racial, and epistemic order.

Another process of hierarchization took place in the scientific field itself and its courses, in the context of what is known as scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, by ordering knowledge and its respective ethnic-racial matrices and having Cartesian rationality and its specific methods as a ruler. However, Shapin¹⁷17 Shapin S. The scientific revolution. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2018. finds skepticism among historians about the idea of unity and universality of science as intended in the concept of scientific revolution. For this author¹⁷17 Shapin S. The scientific revolution. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2018., what is known as "scientific revolution"-an expression French philosopher Alexandre Koyré¹⁸18 Koyré A. Do mundo fechado ao universo infinito. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária; 2001. used in 1939 to characterize what became known in the history of science as a radical, irreversible, and unidirectional transformation of the ways of understanding, explaining, and controlling the natural world, delimiting what would have been the birth of modern science - never took place.

From the geopolitical point of view, the rising liberalism found the necessary conditions for the manipulation and domination of nature and of some peoples in the scientific revolution. Aníbal Quijano has analyzed it based on the formulation of the concepts of colonialities respectively of being, power, and knowledge¹⁹19 Quijano A. Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina. In: Lander E, organizador. A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Buenos Aires: CLACSO; 2005. p. 107-30.. The knowledge of native peoples and the African diaspora was appropriated according to the interests of the colonizers and local elites, but deliberately banned from universities and other Latin American formal education centers; consolidating and permanently updating the epistemic and racial hierarchy initially demanded by colonial capitalism²⁰20 Dussel E. 1492: o encobrimento do outro: a origem do mito da modernidade. Petrópolis: Vozes; 1993..

To put into perspective the widely accepted idea of scientific revolution is to relativize the assumption of a single science as a monolith endowed with the same method, direction, and worldview. It assumes the simultaneous existence of several systematic ways of producing knowledge in different times and regions of the world²¹21 Burke P. O que é história do conhecimento? São Paulo: Unesp; 2016.. As stated by Pedro Demo²²22 Demo P. Praticar ciência: metodologias do conhecimento científico. São Paulo: Saraiva; 2012., the importance exclusively given to Western scientific knowledge has led to the assumption that it would be solely valid, incurring in a colonizing and Eurocentric posture that opposes the application of an important principle of scientificity on the very idea of science: the debatability or guarantee of permanent reconstruction of scientific discourse by the appreciation of the quality of formal aspects (consistency, originality, argumentation, etc.) and the effective consideration of the political aspects inexorably present within scientific practice (intersubjectivity, argument from authority, and social and ethical relevance)²²22 Demo P. Praticar ciência: metodologias do conhecimento científico. São Paulo: Saraiva; 2012..

In the process of retrieving and developing the knowledge colonization and the coloniality of knowledge discarded, the initiatives linked to MK must contemplate the established knowledge from different peoples and territories and the varying ways of knowing them, that is, the basic knowledge that generates new knowledge in a pluriepistemic perspective. The presence of leaders, these polymaths who hold traditional knowledge (Indigenous individuals, quilombolas, artisanal fishermen, etc.) within universities as professors via MK recombine the relation between courses, such as what is known as inter and/or transdisciplinarity²³23 Furtado JP. Equipes de referência: arranjo institucional para potencializar a colaboração entre disciplinas e profissões. Interface (Botucatu). 2007; 11(22):239-55. doi: 10.1590/S1414-32832007000200005.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S1414-3283200700... , and represent the entry of the epistemology of the living cosmos as a way of producing knowledge.

Among the various challenges in implementing MK this study highlights the repercussions caused in graduate students due to their direct interaction with the proposal via a course. Current studies address aspects of MK from various perspectives, such as complementary academic training²⁴24 Guimarães C. "Eu sou a força de puxar": o encontro interepistêmico com Maria Luiza Marcelino, mestra quilombola e umbandista. Saude Soc. 2022; 31(2):e220047pt.^,2525 Brasil A, Guimarães C, Aspahan P. Pedagogias do vento. Mundau. 2020; (9):127-45., the formulation of a methodology to decolonize and transform the university curriculum²⁶26 Carvalho JJ. Epistemômetro: uma metodologia para a descolonização e transformação do currículo das universidades brasileiras. Pragmatizes. 2023; 13(25):302-45.; an emphasis on the debate at what is known as crossroads between multiculturalism versus interculturality²⁷27 Cesar LJT. Limites institucionais ao desenvolvimento de propostas pedagógicas interculturais na Pós-Graduação: observações sobre o MESPT/UnB. Mundau. 2020; (9):68-83.; inquiries about the effective capacity of MK for an epistemic²⁸28 Jardim RMM. Educação intercultural e o Projeto Encontro de Saberes: do giro decolonial ao efetivo giro epistêmico [tese]. Brasília, DF: Universidade de Brasília; 2018.; and the discussion on the bureaucratic-institutional challenges to MK within the universities²⁹29 Figueiredo AFA, Nobre JCL, Allain LR, Paes SR. O Encontro de Saberes como expansão epistêmica: percursos na Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri. Mundau. 2020; (9):50-67. and the greater or lesser permeability of regular courses and courses to it³⁰30 Ponso LC, Albernaz PC. Relatos de experiências do projeto Encontro de Saberes na UFRR e na FURG. Mundau. 2021; 2 Spec No 2:124-43.. However, more studies are needed on how students perceive and assimilate MK, especially those linked to graduate programs, the effects of which have been less addressed so far. Thus, this study considered the perceptions, reflections, and questions raised in a group of students based on their contact with leaders who taught curricular course classes in a graduate program in health to analyze possible influences in the training of future researchers and teachers from their direct contact with the epistemes in the invited leaders’ presentations throughout university courses.

Methodology

This study is part of the research entitled “Participação e diversidade - a construção inclusiva e pluriepistêmica da Saúde Global” [Participation and diversity – the inclusive and pluriepistemic construction of Global Health], carried out with the traditional peoples and communities that belong to the Teia dos Povos³¹31 Pimentel SK. Teia dos Povos: afetos-encantos afro-indígenas-populares numa coalizão cosmopolítica. Tellus. 2021; 21(46):253-82. of Bahia – a coalition of social movements of artisanal fishermen and extractivists, quilombolas, Indigenous people, and others in that state. This research addresses issues in the concepts of “local” and “global” in the development of cross-border health actions of what is known as Global Health³²32 Salm M, Ali M, Minihane M, Conrad P. Defining global health: findings from a systematic review and thematic analysis of the literature. BMJ Glob Health. 2021; 6(6):e005292.. The study involved 185 days of daytime immersion in some territories of Teia dos Povos in a mode of interaction based on action research³³33 Bringel B, Varella RVS. A pesquisa militante na América Latina hoje: reflexões sobre as desigualdades e as possibilidades de produção de conhecimentos. Rev Digit Direito Adm. 2016; 3(3):474-89..

To our presence in the field was added, as a research strategy, the planning of an online graduate course (due to resource limitations) based on MK, by which some leaders would present their territories and the ways they faced the recent SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. In the preparation of this course, the main author visited the leaders’ territories, planning the foreseen classes with them. Videographic records were produced during the visits, which were then edited in dialogue with their protagonists, who preceded each exhibition, providing students with knowledge of the networks of relationships and characteristics of the territories of origin of the invited professors. From the point of view of academia, the course was conducted by two professors: the main researcher and a colleague who also works in evaluation of educational practices.

The group of leaders was composed as follows: one of the agrarian reform settlement and Teia dos Povos; a fisherman and leader of an extractive reserve; a Capoeira master and leader of a quilombo; a Tupinambá couple (chief and shaman, respectively); a scholar of the medicinal effects of cerrado plants and their practical applications; and a Black activist and quilombola leader.

This research is a case study³⁴34 Becker HS. La Bonne focale: de l´utilité des cas particuliers en sciences sociales. Paris: Éd. La Découverte; 2016.35. of the course that was composed of nine meetings lasting 2h30 each, for 19 graduate students of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Health Sciences at the Unifesp Health and Society Institute, totaling 45 hours from May to June 2023, during which seven leaders of different insertions and knowledge explained their trajectory, territories, and ways of coping with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, of which two were quilombolas; one, a leader of an extractive reserve of artisanal fishing; one, an agrarian reform settler and agroecologist; two, Tupinambá; and one, a raizeira. This study focused on issues related to the interaction between graduate students and leaders and their repercussions from an epistemological perspective. Specific content questions referring to global health will be considered in subsequent studies.

The analysis corpus³⁵35 Bauer MW, Aarts B. A construção do corpus: um princípio para a coleta de dados qualitativos. In: Bauer MW, Gaskell G, organizadores. Pesquisa qualitativa com texto, imagem e som: um manual prático. 7a ed. Petrópolis: Vozes; 2008. p. 39-63. of this study consisted of several sources: the record of justification of interest, required from each student when they requested enrollment in the course; the transcription of the first class in which the discussion of expectations was resumed; and, finally, a focus group for evaluation³⁶36 Oliveira JC, Penido CMF, Franco ACR, Santos TLA, Silva BAW. Especificidades do grupo focal on-line: uma revisão integrativa. Cienc Saude Colet. 2022; 27(5):1813-26., held at the penultimate meeting of the course. Although unforeseen, written dialogues between students and teachers were incorporated, which took place on a virtual platform to support learning, around the reviews of indicated texts and the exchanges of emails between some students and teachers. As a requirement for admission to the course, applicants watched a video about MK and read a text that detailed the purpose and way of organizing the course, a starting point for the writing of some paragraphs justifying their interest in enrolling. In turn, the focus group sought to capture impressions and eventual developments in the personal and professional spheres, generated by contact and dialogue with epistemes unlike that with which the training of graduate students has been taking place. The comments between professors linked to the university and students around the reviews of three texts that made up the basic bibliography of the course generated unexpected and important records of the students’ trajectories and were thus incorporated. Emails sent by some graduate students contained impressions and spontaneous evaluations of aspects of the course and were also incorporated.

Evaluative research should seek to understand and systematize the encounter between the planned and the reality that offers some degree of resistance to our intentions³⁷37 Zuñiga RB. La evaluación en la acción social: autonomias y solidariedades. Montreal [mimeo]; 2006.. Thus, we chose to adapt the path proposed by what is known as fourth generation of evaluation³⁸38 Guba EG, Lincoln YS. Avaliação de quarta geração. Campinas: Unicamp; 2011., originally aimed at educational practices³⁹39 Russell N, Willinsky J. Fourth generation educational evaluation: the impact of a post-modern paradigm on school based evaluation. Stud Educ Eval. 1997; 23(3):187-99., being able to support interactive and participatory processes from a qualitative perspective with interest groups⁴⁰40 Gregory A. Problematizing participation: a critical review of approaches to participation in evaluation theory. Evaluation. 2000; 6(2):179-99. and aligning with current values of what is known as emerging approaches of qualitative evaluations originating in Latin America. Fourth-generation evaluation represents advances in the ability to make evaluation processes especially permeable to the myriads of factors that can cross an evaluated entity, seeking to address political, social, cultural aspects and the context⁴¹41 Furtado JP. Um método construtivista para a avaliação em saúde. Cienc Saude Colet. 2001; 6(1):165-81.. In this case, we adapted the hermeneutic circle in the fourth-generation evaluation proposal, considering each of the meetings as offers or insights provided by the evaluators to further the evaluation process, as carried out in other studies⁴²42 Furtado JP, Serapioni M, Pereira MF, Tesser CD. Participação e avaliação participativa em saúde: reflexões a partir de um caso. Interface (Botucatu). 2021; 25:e210283. doi: 10.1590/interface.210283.
https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.210283... (Figure 1). Under this evaluative framework, a priori establishment is replaced by the privilege of questions, claims, complaints, and other issues and perspectives that emerge from the considered interest group based on evaluators’ offers and stimuli. The corpus was then read. The researchers sought to evaluate the contents under theoretical categories that compose or are articulated with the MK, configuring the stage of analysis and discussion.

This research was approved by the Ethics Committee at Universidade Federal de São Paulo under opinion 0687/2022 and CAAE: 60943622.4.0000.5505.

Results

The group of graduate students is characterized as aged from 30 to 39 years, self-declared White, and, for the most part, women. Health graduations prevailed in this sample. The interdisciplinary nature of the program including people from several backgrounds, such as environmental and forestry engineering. students’ research topics are heterogeneous, ranging from sonographic markers of pathologies to environmental education programs.

The justifications written by the interested parties for joining the course after watching the video and reading the details of the proposal constituted a diverse panel of interests: personal, rather than properly academic, enrichment; curiosity toward what was called “other cultures”; recognition in the proposal of eminently political action to confront coloniality in the spheres of power, knowledge, and being; valorization of the plurality of the Brazilian population; and participation in the retrieval of lost cultural manifestations. Given the distinct origin of the graduate students, holders of different degrees (nutrition, medicine, social work, biomedicine, occupational therapy, forest engineering, anthropology, and physiotherapy) and linked to research projects and multiple advisors, it would be possible to expect different reasons that would lead them there at first. The statement of a biomedical doctor, with a master’s degree in pharmacology, that “Pharmacology is a science that has taken advantage (and still uses) of traditional knowledge, but little is discussed in universities” (PG5) aligned itself with one of the meanings of the course as it recognizes the simultaneous use and concealment of knowledge of original peoples by science.

A few weeks later, at the end of the first class, a new round on expectations and motivations toward the course was made online, preceded by the reading of a text about MK and a detailed presentation of the course. At that time, ancestry and family history appeared as justifications for the interest: “from a personal point of view, my father and mother are from the countryside of the countryside (…) and they always have a solution for some headache, for something” (PG2). Or, as stated by a physician present in the course, “Then I remembered that when I was a child, my mother had that tea planting in the back of the house and I remembered the amount of teas she had planted in the back of the house” (PG7), adding:

A direct interaction between generations based on the course was reported:

A third and last initiative addressed the course itself, taking place in the penultimate meeting by a focus group aimed at evaluating the proposal; therefore, when the graduate students had already interacted with most of the invited leaders and with all the bibliography. It was a moment to evaluate the strategies of the course, its content and the explanations of the guests and the effects of this interaction. At this point, the statements in the previous rounds - aligning traditional knowledge with family ancestry- continued:

The epistemological and even pluriepistemic approach inherent to the proposal of the course was recognized: “And I think it brings a great impact, of greater learning - of learning to apprehend this other knowledge - and of going beyond a person from academia who only sees a single piece of knowledge” (PG5). Also, along this way, the structuring of the course to recognize the place of knowledge of the guests, considering the used reference, was evaluated:

It seems to have generated immediate implications:

The clash between scientific knowledge housed in academia as opposed to the knowledge of traditional peoples and communities emerged in some reflections: “One thing that struck me and that was commented on by the leaders is how academia is usually the main place of disrespect for this knowledge. (…) The more you advance in academia, the more you start to disrespect or ignore this knowledge” (PG5). And the recognition that course itself is a taking of a position: “So, we, as a participant of the classes of all these leaders, we are entering into a political-epistemological dispute in academia” (PG8).

Discussion

The three approaches to capture students’ impressions progressively developed the aspects related to MK. The process of justifying their entry into the course contains curiosity about “other cultures” and a desire to overcome the limitations of conventional science. In a second moment, the questions initially outlined touched the universe lived by the students, incorporating the personal and family trajectory, illustrated in the concrete gesture of inclusion of the mother of one of the graduate students in the monitoring of the course. Testimonies from the academic area itself and how it appropriates and uses traditional knowledge were shared. Finally, in the focus group for the evaluation of the course, the role of traditional knowledge in personal education and its erasure in educational institutions came to light.

Inserting leaders as holders of traditional knowledge unlike the formal academic model (which exacerbates rationality) into a university with a limited familiarity with the MK proposal, tactically affected the transformation of the hegemonic episteme by occupying a space within a conventional graduate program specially geared at teaching and research, rather than extension. In the scenario analyzed, this insertion occurred through the mediation of professors and researchers contractually linked to the university and recognized through degrees obtained in graduate programs stricto sensu, called “partner teachers” within the scope of MK. Such mediation was recently relativized by a federal university, which offered a title of notorious knowledge to leaders in its faculty by a public notice⁴³43 Universidade Federal da Bahia. UFBA divulga resultado do primeiro edital de professores com notório saber [Internet]. Salvador: UFBA em Pauta; 2023 [citado 10 Nov 2023]. Disponível em: https://www.ufba.br/ufba_em_pauta/ufba-divulga-resultado-do-primeiro-edital-de-professores-com-notorio-saber
https://www.ufba.br/ufba_em_pauta/ufba-d... .

One of the effects of the occupation of the academic space by these leaders in this study refers to the very recognition in the act of existence and consequent relativization of a hegemonic episteme that, by naturalizing what is known as modern scientific thought⁴⁴44 Lander E, organizador. A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais Perspectivas latino-americanas. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: CLACSO; 2005. p. 8-23., is no longer identified as a product of social relations, being unquestionably reproduced in established methodologies. Thus, at different moments of the evaluation, the distinction emerged, by the graduate students, between the hegemonic form and other epistemes, contrasting academic characteristics and formulations with those shared by the leaders. However, note that this no longer occurred from Eurocentric references, but by valuing and legitimizing the forms of epistemic construction in the course. We can consider this movement convergent with what Carvalho⁴⁵45 Carvalho JJ. Encontro de saberes, descolonização e transdisciplinaridade: três conferências introdutórias. In: Tugny RP, Gonçalves G, organizadores. Universidade popular e encontro de saberes. Salvador: EdUFBA; 2020. p. 13-58. called an epistemic rupture, establishing coexistence between knowledges to the extent that it was possible to dialogue between the knowledge of the leaders and the academic references brought by the graduate students. For Quijano¹⁹19 Quijano A. Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina. In: Lander E, organizador. A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Buenos Aires: CLACSO; 2005. p. 107-30., the radical separation between reason and body, consecrated by Descartes, made possible the construction of a scientific theory of the racial problem, in which non-White races could be considered as inferior due to supposed irrationality, being closer to “nature,” according to the myth of the state of nature. The author¹⁹19 Quijano A. Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina. In: Lander E, organizador. A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Buenos Aires: CLACSO; 2005. p. 107-30. emphasizes that from this construction it was possible for non-European peoples to be considered as objects of study and exploration by Europeans.

The analyzed initiative, based on MK, valued the leaders’ knowledge and established a level for guests equivalent to those professors in a course with credits valid for graduate students, subvert, also in action, the hierarchization of knowledge and power¹¹11 Carvalho JJ. O encontro de saberes nas artes e as epistemologias do cosmo vivo. In: Tugny RP, Gonçalves G, organizadores. Universidade popular e encontro de saberes. Salvador: EdUFBA; 2020. p. 475-508. in that context. On the other hand, the discourse of several leaders, expressing a position against subjecting to the condition of objects of investigation, was especially valued by students, who thus had one more testimony of the ability of leaders to recognize themselves their respective capacities to produce and transmit knowledge and, thus, relativize the hierarchy of knowledge.

From the students’ perspective, we can identify ambiguities, as in the case in which one of them shows admiration for the content: “How had I never thought about it? Wow! How did they think of it?” We also find appreciation of the brought knowledge, the surprise produced by someone who has no academic background. Such ambiguity illustrates concepts that operate even if in the absence of consciousness, being a product and input for the reproduction of coloniality as an ideology and configuring a deeper and more comprehensive horizon of dispute as the ruptures necessary for pluriepistemic coexistence exceed students’ awareness, being equally needed to consider the ideological character that operates in the unconscious.

The presence of leaders in courses affects the current hegemonic epistemic. Hence the emergence of pressing questions about the relationship established between the university institution and the territory in which it is inserted, questioning its democratic character of knowledge production, its capacity to assimilate and promote Brazilian cultural diversity, and its ability to generate responses to the demands of the different segments of our society.

In addition to the epistemic and political-institutional level, it is necessary to consider the subjective repercussions produced in the students by retrieving personal and family memories from the valorization of African and Indigenous thoughts and practices - often in their childhood or youth from their relationship with elders - and which are covered as they progress in their academic training. Repositioning traditional knowledge and its subjects in a less asymmetrical position with formal knowledge subjectively repositions this knowledge. Expanding the epistemic frameworks of education may enlarge subjective grammar to relate to oneself, others, and the world, as highlighted in some assertions in the results above. The political and subjective dimensions are sometimes woven by a relationship of composition, sometimes of confrontation, in a dialectic between the public and private spheres that gathers thinking, feeling, reason, and affection, opening a horizon for new ways of acting and conceiving the formative process.

For example, this dialectic emerges when a graduate student states that the education their university offers “erased part of my essence, part of my culture, part of my history”. In the discourse of other students, MK offers a possibility to resume these elements: the memory of the medicinal teas drunk in childhood, the greetings and blessings that marked a spirituality and affection between generations; valuing techniques to deal with nature (the guava branch used to map water below the ground); or by the location in the subjective history of cultural manifestations that bring a sense of identity and territorial belonging.

Thus, the reflection on the asymmetry between academic and traditional knowledge subjectively echoes in this unveiling of “interior” memories. This “interior”, which often appears in the students’ reports under a dialectical gaze, can be taken as a geographical location and as an intimate and subjective space. The identity dimension may also synthesize this if seen as a social and community construction and an intimate construct, an element of belonging and location in the world.

Conclusion

The careful dialogue between different epistemes in this course put into perspective the notion of a single science and provided the unveiling and reflective retrieval of aspects of direct background and ancestry that constitute students’ particular trajectories. As stated, expanding epistemic references promoted political repercussions within the scientific field and expanded participants’ subjective grammar. The latter occurred by personal the dis-cover of knowledge that has been systematically despised throughout the history of Brazil and, possibly, students’ family history. The epistemic plurality in their formation opened gaps so they could elaborate on their respective trajectories, which were established in interaction with the colonialities of being, power, and knowledge in Brazil. Such evidence can positively affect scientific practice by confronting the abstract universality that qualifies them for professional practice and by promoting ethical positions that face the limitations imposed by ideology on the production of good knowledge committed to a less asymmetrical society. Naturally, what we have just said was only possible because the leaders could present and transmit their knowledge and students, recognized the value of what was transmitted to them.

This study has as, a limitation the fact that the evaluation processes excluded the teachers, who may have contributed with new and different perspectives to the process. It also seems pertinent to inquire about the effective collaboration of the course of the course with the agendas of leaders’ communities struggles that are usually threatened in their territorial and cultural sovereignty. Finally, although outside the central axis of this discussion, it was impossible to reflect the debate, diversity,and disagreements around decolonial issues, which would require an expansion of the text that is incompatible with the space allocated to it.

References

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