Lideranças indígenas no norte amazônico: vozes do processo de formação

Abstract

The indigenous movement has sought to expand its participation in the national political scenario. This performance is strengthened by the initiative and engagement of its political and community leaders. Thus, given the important role played by indigenous leaders, this research questions how they and they were constituted in the condition of leaders and which educational processes were decisive for their performance. Therefore, this study sought to understand the process of formation of these leaders and analyze which modalities influenced the development of the profile of ethnic representation and greater political participation. Our general objective was to identify the educational processes involved in the formation of indigenous leaders and analyze the contributions of experiences, knowledge, school and non-school, for the formation of indigenous people who exercise the role of spokesperson for the community. From a methodological perspective, a narrative research was developed through semi-structured interviews with six indigenous leaders from Amapá and northern Pará-Brazil. Based on the narratives, the preponderance of certain educational modalities over others was found. Informal education proved to be the species that most contributed to the formation of leaders. Through the traditional transfer of knowledge and coexistence with the leaders, affection for their community is built, skills and understanding of the importance of the leader's role are consolidated. In turn, non-formal education also contributed to the training of the indigenous leaders interviewed. Entities such as CIMI, IEPÉ and COIAB allowed interaction between the various leaders in the country, organized workshops and encouraged the organization of the collective. Formal education, on the other hand, was cited as of great importance by the leaders, but the highlights seemed to focus more on the figure of the teacher and his/her encouragement and the development of oratory, than on the content and proposal curriculum adopted. Thus, the importance of training leaders through formal education, or indigenous school education, had a more relational and attitudinal influence and less on learning in different areas of knowledge. In this way, it was possible to establish an order of valuation among the educational models in the process of training indigenous leaders in Amapá and Northern Pará, namely: 1) In greater magnitude, informal education, with respect and appreciation of the knowledge and actions resulting from the experiences of the indigenous community and the references of generations of indigenous leaders who preceded them; 2) in a proportion equivalent to non-formal education and formal education, insofar as the former acts connecting the indigenous with elements external to their daily life (travels, events, extra courses, dialogue with other indigenous people, other professionals) and, second, as relevant in itself, whose contribution would be the communicative improvement and encouragement of teachers to act as leaders.