Abstract

SALOM, Julio Souto. THE GRIOT INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL: TOWARDS A DECOLONIAL EDUCATION. Revista LES [online]. 2024, vol.28, n.57, 4669.  Epub Apr 03, 2025. ISSN 2526-8449.  https://doi.org/10.26694/rles.v28i57.4669.

The inclusion of the Afro-Brazilian perspective in formal education has made important advances in recent decades, enabling pedagogical innovations for the decolonization of education. Among the changes, we observed the presence of griots in schools, incorporating knowledge and teaching procedures from extraacademic spaces. The objective of this study is to follow the griots inside and outside the school, to understand the connection between educational practices in the formal space and the ancestral knowledge built in traditional spaces. We begin with a general contextualization of the figure of griots in an African context and their growing presence in Brazil today, reconstructing the process of their recent proliferation. Afterwards, we carried out an ethnographic monitoring of the educational activities of two griots in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre. For several months, we observed the activities of griots at school (conversation circles, lectures, theatrical presentations) and outside of school (Capoeira meeting, Yoruba classes in terreiras of Batuque). The extra-academic experience of griots is fundamental in their performance at school. We highlight the study of African linguistic marks in Portuguese spoken in Brazil and colonial racism without linear temporality. With this, African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture is not introduced as a cold curricular component, but from an affective sensitivity and anti-racist position, confronting the colonial inertia of some practices rooted in everyday school life. We conclude that the collaboration of griôs in formal education has enormous potential to decolonize education, as long as it is coordinated with the actions of teachers.

Keywords : Griots; Decolonial Education; African and Afro-Brazilian History..

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