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Post-Doctoral Programme Seminar Maria Betânia B. Albuquerque June 25th, 2009, 15:00, CES Seminar Room In our society, when people wish to acquire knowledge, they consult, almost always, books or formal teaching schools. Some groups, however, seek knowledge they judge relevant to them, not necessarily, or exclusively, from school or teachers (in their human form). But instead, some groups consult fungi, roots, lianas or leaves, seen as intelligence carriers with which it is possible to contact and obtain knowledge. In this study, I analyze the knowledge embodied in the educative experience mediated by the ayahuasca, an indigenous origin drink prepared through the combination of a liana and leaves of the Amazon Forest, used with the purpose of healing and self-knowledge. I argument that, so beyond what Pedagogy comprehends as education, learning experiences thrive in different spaces and cultures, masters are not, necessarily, human, besides materializing it selves in other criteria of intelligibility. I part from the following questions: What cultural knowledges cross the ayahuasca experience? What relations do those knowledges maintain with other fields, such as history, psychology, pedagogy, or law? What is the epistemological basis of those knowledges? In the context of the colonial logic that governs modern science, still in vogue, the ayahuasca experience places itself, clearly, on “the other side of the line”. Nonetheless, in spite of this historical place, the ayahuasca, just as the liana with it is made, has been twining itself in every corner, from the north to south of Brazil, from the periphery to the centre, through the borders and to the exterior, in a complex movement of interculturality and ecology of knowledge. Maria Betânia B. Albuquerque is a pedagogue, with a masters degree in Education at the University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and a doctoral degree in Education: History, Politics, Society, at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of São Paulo (PUC). Is professor of the Post-Graduate Programme in Education at the University of the State of Pará (UEPA), in the research line: Cultural Knowledges and Education in Amazonia. Author of the book: ABC do Santo Daime: Belém, PA, Eduepa, 2007. Develops the research: Indigenous drinks and educative processes in colonial Amazonia, sponsored by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). |