Formation of the indigenous pedagogue: A land of rights and resistance

Abstract

This text analyses the process of collective construction of the Political-Pedagogic Project of the degree in Indigenous Pedagogy at Midwestern State University in Guarapuava, Paraná, Brazil, from the demand presented by the indigenous community of Rio das Cobras.After explaining the juridical-pedagogical aspects of access to higher education the pedagogy course, and the formation of indigenous teachers, the authors present the process of the collective construction of the project and subjects involved, including an introduction to the process of special selection of candidates to the course and their profiles. Using a bibliographic research method, mediated with a documentary analysis, the authors consider how this process encouraged the subjects to think about the social function of the public university, that is, to get closer to the people and to construct strategies to access and provide continuity for subjects of minority groups. The consolidation of the pedagogy course, while taking into account indigenous people’s cultural and epistemological particularities, is a way to resist, to take part in the university, and to ensure that the university helps to fortify processes of auto-organization, of human formation in all dimensions, of access to different kinds of knowledge, of professional qualification, and of reevaluation of the pedagogical work at the university.