Portela Cultural: histórias e pedagogias de um departamento de escola de samba

Abstract

The object of this research is to understand the building of a Decolonised Education by the Portela Samba School, located in the suburban area of Oswaldo Cruz in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This dissertation reveals how the elements of Portela’s tradition are handled and reorganized in a process that derives from the African diasporic thinking. In order to do so, this work analyses the activity of Portela’s culture department during the 2013-2016 term, showing how the historical facts, personal memoirs, narratives and cultural militancy are reframed under a decolonized pedagogy, notably in the 2016-2020 term. In other words, how the Culture Department shares with future generations the values, knowledge and popular cultural practices that add up new perspectives to the very same tradition it is entrusted to preserve. Such an act has a sphere of influence that goes beyond Portela’s headquarters, its native neighborhood and even the city through the internet. The chosen methodology is qualitative, which is an approach that demands interviews and testimonies, the search for documents in archives, reading of newspapers, magazines, websites specialized in samba schools coverage and posts made on social networks, as well as the academic bibliography (articles, dissertations, essays and thesis) on the subject. The text sheds light on the history of Portela’s Culture Department since its creation, the protagonism of its founders Hiram Araújo and Antônio Candeia Filho, the resumption made by the PortelaWeb team, the internal political movement named Portela Verdade, which turned into an election ticket to gain control of the school’s administration and the restructuring of the Portela Cultural cell. The latter not only recovers the samba school’s traditions but also actively proposes identity development debates on race and gender, remaining active even during the pandemic, allowing dialogues with new artistic expressions, languages and technologies. Portela Cultural cooperates with a non-formal education in defense of the unique culture of suburban and peripheral Rio.