TALK WITH PAULO MAIA
(UFMG School of Education and post-doctorate DA/USP)
Têhêy is the name given by the Pataxoop to both a type of fishing net and to the drawings on paper through which they practice their own form of condensed writing also called “knowledge fishing”. The têhêy are used in the classroom as a pedagogical resource, especially in the classes on culture and uses of the territory taught by teacher Liça Pataxoop, who has a collection of several hundred têhêy. Pedagogy of defense, in turn, is the way in which chief Kanátyo Pataxooop summarizes the daily work of resistance considering the teachings inherited from the Yãmixoop in defense of the land, the village, the forest and the indigenous school. Muã Mimãtxi teaches us pedagogies attuned to the challenges posed by the ongoing ecological collapse, in addition to echoing the theoretical, practical and conceptual challenges of relational approaches in the field of anthropology, education or both. In this presentation, I intend to explore the contours of a pedagogy of defense, with a special focus on the fishing tehêy of Dona Liça's knowledge, taking into account the experience accumulated in different research projects [2019-2022], teaching [2023] and extension [2024-2025] at UFMG in collaboration with the Pataxoop village/school Muã Mimãtxi.