A Formação Territorial do Brasil e o Ensino de Geografia: A Invizibilização das Territorialidades Indígenas nos Livros Didáticos

Abstract

The present work seeks to understand how indigenous territories are inserted in geography textbooks, referring to the content of territorial formation in Brazil present in books of the seventh year of elementary school. The geography of Brazil that is taught in these content diffusers has different problems, one of which is the insertion of the indigenous theme (their territories and territorialities) in a precarious, prejudiced way, escaping from the conceptual theoretical complexity of the theme. But above all, it refers to the conception of territory used by the authors of the book, a conception of statocentric, hegemonic territory that claims to be functional, of economic cycles and enterprises. A paradigm against hegemonic reading of the concept is therefore proposed here, which presupposes the multiplicity of territories and territorialities that coexist and are plural in their forms of constitution and appropriation. The research shows that such problems are inherited from the origin of the teaching of geography and modern social sciences, constituted from a pattern of power that has race as a standard of social classification. The selection of books followed the criteria of the collections most acquired by the Brazilian state. Among them, the most sold “Araribá Mais” and the second, from the same publisher, “Expedições Geográficas”. The Public Notice launched in 2018 approved twelve collections in force for the next four years starting in 2020 already in accordance with the Common National Curricular Base. The analysis methodology is formed from a thematic block formed by questions, which are not necessarily answered separately, but which lead to the analysis of the books. In them, the concept of territory and territoriality discussed in the contents of territorial formation in Brazil is problematized. That the hegemonic conception in the book silences and makes indigenous territories, their territories and their strategies of struggle and resistance impossible. These peoples are treated as isolated, peoples of the past and always in need of the protection of the State and non-governmental organizations. And it is proposed to make use of the concepts of critical interculturality and the ecology of knowledge as an alternative to the debate on the theme that refers to indigenous peoples. Understanding that resistance, political, epistemic, cultural and territorial is constant in the daily lives of these peoples. And the articulation between different ethnicities and peoples that suffer some type of exploitation and domination throughout the process of territorial formation in Brazil has always been something constant and an important strategy for these peoples.