RAIMUNDO NONATO DE PÁDUA CÂNCIO PRACTICES OF COLONIALITY/DECOLONIALITY FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND ACQUISITION IN THE AMAZON Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação – CIP C215p Câncio, Raimundo Nonato de Pádua. Practices of coloniality/decoloniality for language learning and acquisition in the Amazon. / Raimundo Nonato de Pádua Câncio. – Palmas, TO: EDUFT, 2020. 108 p. ; 21 x 29,7 cm. ISBN 978-65-89119-40-1 Title inpotuguese: Práticas de colonialidade/decolonialidade na aquisição e aprendizagem de línguas na amazônia. 1. Brazilian Amazon. 2. Coloniality. 3. Languages. 4. Learning, language. 5. Brazil. I. Raimundo Nonato de Pádua Câncio. II. Title. CDD – 469 RAIMUNDO NONATO DE PÁDUA CÂNCIO PRACTICES OF COLONIALITY/DECOLONIALITY FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND ACQUISITION IN THE AMAZON PALMAS - TO 2020 Universidade Federal do Tocantins Reitor Membros por área: Luis Eduardo Bovolato Liliam Deisy Ghizoni Eder Ahmad Charaf Eddine Vice-reitora (Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde) Ana Lúcia de Medeiros Pró-Reitor de Administração e Finanças (PROAD) João Nunes da Silva Jaasiel Nascimento Lima Ana Roseli Paes dos Santos Lidianne Salvatierra Pró-Reitor de Assuntos Estudantis (PROEST) Wilson Rogério dos Santos Kherlley Caxias Batista Barbosa (Interdisciplinar) Pró-Reitora de Extensão, Cultura e Assuntos Comunitários (PROEX) Alexandre Tadeu Rossini da Silva Maria Santana Ferreira Milhomem Maxwell Diógenes Bandeira de Melo (Engenharias, Ciências Exatas e da Terra) Pró-Reitora de Gestão e Desenvolvimento de Pessoas (PROGEDEP) Vânia Maria de Araújo Passos Francisco Gilson Rebouças Porto Junior Thays Assunção Reis Pró-Reitor de Graduação (PROGRAD) Vinicius Pinheiro Marques Eduardo José Cezari (Ciências Sociais Aplicadas) Pró-Reitor de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação (PROPESQ) Marcos Alexandre de Melo Santiago Raphael Sanzio Pimenta Tiago Groh de Mello Cesar Conselho Editorial William Douglas Guilherme EDUFT Gustavo Cunha Araújo (Ciências Humanas, Letras e Artes) Presidente Francisco Gilson Rebouças Porto Junior Diagramação e capa: Gráfica Movimento Arte de capa: Gráfica Movimento O padrão ortográfico e o sistema de citações e referências bibliográficas são prerrogativas de cada autor. Da mesma forma, o conteúdo de cada capítulo é de inteira e exclusiva responsabilidade de seu respectivo autor. http://www.abecbrasil.org.br SUMÁRIO PRESENTATION . 6 Raimundo Nonato de Pádua Câncio PREFACE . 8 CHAPTER 1 - The Waiwai of the Brazilian Amazon . 11 Who are the Waiwai people? . 11 Social organization and language aspects . 20 School situation, bi/multilingualism and intercultural dialogues . 32 CHAPTER II - Theoretical foundation and methodological procedures . 41 The decolonial option and the coloniality matrix . 41 The Ethnographic Type Case Study . 49 Procedures, Instruments and Analysis . 53 Chapter III - Coloniality/Decoloniality, language learning and acquisition in the formation of Waiwai culture . 61 Coloniality of Power: discourse and power in the dispute and maintenance of the territory . 72 Coloniality of Being: catechizing practices and discourse control . 79 Coloniality of Knowledge: transgressions and tension . 87 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS . 96 REFERENCES . 100 PRACTICES OF COLONIALITY/DECOLONIALITY FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND ACQUISITION IN THE AMAZON PRESENTATION This book presents a study on the acquisition and learning of the Portuguese Language and the Waiwai Indigenous Language, spoken by the Waiwai (Karib) peoples of Aldeia Mapuera, of the Nhamundá-Mapura Indigenous Territory, in the Brazilian Amazon. The main objective is to analyze, based on critical Post-colonial and Decolonial theories, the meanings assumed by the acquisition and learning of the Portuguese language and how these indigenous peoples deal with this particularity of being constituted between two languages, which assume different powers in the their cultural background. The presented problem calls into question the knowledge that comes from cultural experiences and is incorporated as skills that help to demarcate identities in the school environment and in the context of the acquisition of Portuguese. The subjects shown here are not separated from the reality that permeates them. They are people who speak from a certain body and place, have histories, political and ethical motivations, as well as interests to speak in a certain way and not in another. It is precisely because they are subjects who speak from a place, have unique experiences and histories, since in Brazil they live in a border region (Brazil-Guyana), that we pay special attention to the way in which Portuguese learning is historically claimed by them, considering that the Waiwai people, composed of several ethnicities, are multilingual and their history shows that, in that context of borders, there was always a wide network of exchanges between these subjects, where objects, techniques, rituals and people circulated and still circulate. However, in order to better understand these relationships, it is essential that discussions about the produc- tion of knowledge among indigenous peoples, as in this approach, be constituted from multidis- ciplinary theoretical fields. In this sense, this study, carried out with funding from CAPES and being part of the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Para, is registered among those who seek to reflect on the power relations arising from the colonial heritage and economic and cultural imperialism in the Amazon Region, marked by the contact with the colonizer, who has always used the acquisition and learning of languages as resources undertaken in the process of Christianization, involving disputes, power relations and against hegemonies in this context. As Bakhtin (2006) rightly observed, language conflicts reflect class conflicts within the same system, because verbal communication “implies conflicts, relationships of domination and re- sistance, adaptation or resistance to hierarchy”, in addition to the use of language by the ruling class to reinforce its power. As a consequence and challenge to the historical practices of coloniality experienced by indigenous peoples in this country, today they have “guaranteed” the right to a specific, differ- entiated, intercultural, bilingual/multilingual and community school education, as defined by the national legislation that underlies Indigenous School Education. However, for many peoples it is increasingly difficult to maintain their ancestral knowledge, preserve their languages, guarantee their rights, including education capable of strengthening ethnic and cultural affirmation, and ensuring their own lives. 6 PRACTICES OF COLONIALITY/DECOLONIALITY FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND ACQUISITION IN THE AMAZON In view of the current scenario, it is urgent, therefore, to inquire about the so-called installed capacity to face the challenges and to reflect on the resistance and the conditions in which these peoples find themselves and also have to overcome their problems. Our intention with this book is to draw attention to the fact that diverse voices echo in the language education and, specifically, in the teaching of Portuguese as a second language in multicultural contexts, such as in the Amazon. Signs coexist and “in them there are ideo- logical-social contradictions between the past and the present, between the various periods of the past, between the various groups of the present, between the possible and contradictory futures” (MIOTELLO, 2008, p. 172). Our proposal is to bring information that allows students, teachers, researchers, education departments and indigenous leaders, a better understanding of the power relations between languages and cultures, between knowledge, forms of coloniality, both regarding the schools and other social spaces. We hope that the information gathered here can mainly raise the debate and provoke reflections on an education that wants to be bi/multilin- gual, differentiated and intercultural. For the development of this book, as we organize it here, it is important to structure the text in three chapters. In the first chapter, “The Waiwai of the Brazilian Amazon”, we present the Waiwai people, their cultural tradition, social organization and sociolinguistic aspects. In the second chapter, we emphasize the “Theoretical basis and methodological procedures”, where we approach the foundations of critical post-colonial and decolonial theories, as epistemic, theoret- ical and political perspectives followed. After this, we address the set of procedures that make up the methodological structure of an instrumental nature, and that provides tools for effective analysis. In the third chapter, “Coloniality/Decoloniality: language acquisition and learning in the formation of the Waiwai culture”, we discussed the aspects of the acquisition of the indig- enous language and Portuguese in Mapuera Village, highlighting the meanings assumed by the acquisition of Portuguese in them. These questions are approached from the following matrix of coloniality: coloniality of power, coloniality of being and coloniality of knowledge. Good reading! 7 PRACTICES OF COLONIALITY/DECOLONIALITY FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND ACQUISITION IN THE AMAZON PREFACE For some time, Ailton Krenak, an important indigenous writer, for whom I have a deep ad- miration, who is able to see beyond what is apparent, has been alerting us to the world of illusion in which the white man is immersed. With the pandemic and the current necropolitics occurring in our country, Krenak raises a debate as to whether whites will be able to survive