Narratives of mozambic elderly people in the interface with the cock paintings of Chinhamapere: alvitre to a decolonial pedagogy in history teaching

Abstract

In this text we intend to establish a bridge based on the theme of the dissertation entitled “Sharing memories and narratives of Mozambican masters in the interface with the rock paintings of Chinhamapere”, developed in the Postgraduate Program in Public History at UNESPAR. Campo Mourão campus, to think about the teaching of history in Mozambique from a dialogical perspective between cultural heritage (rock paintings of Chinhamapere) and counter-hegemonic memories. In this article, we focus on how narratives and memories about the traditions of cave paintings shared by elders can enhance the teaching of history, thus increasing the appreciation of local history and at the same time preventing the community's traditions from being forgotten or memoricide led by the progressive devaluation of community knowledge to the detriment of scientific and Eurocentric knowledge, which floods the teaching curricula that serve as repositories of European content, making invisible and subalternizing the content and knowledge of local communities, which are reduced to “non-knowledge” because they do not comply with scientific criteria. It is in this interim that we propose this reflection in search of pedagogical practices that revalue this “non-knowledge”, and that break with the boundaries of knowledge, bringing into pedagogical practices voices that are silenced and excluded, as a possibility of expanding the understanding of the world under other lenses. To put the research into action, we followed Benjamin's (1985) theoretical-methodological itineraries, which through conversation circles and through the practice of remembrance welcome memories of the elderly in a dialogical and collaborative relationship, obeying the principle of shared authority (Frish 2016). Therefore, to carry out the dialogue with the teaching of history from a decolonial perspective, we rely on the reflections of Walsh (2009), Santos (2009), Quijano (2005) and Candau (2020).