Indigenous Ancestrality and Modes of Resistance in the Education of Young Children

Abstract

This article analyzes Indigenous resistance in the education of children living in urban contexts, highlighting the ways in which decolonial pedagogical practices have emerged as alternatives for cultural and political affirmation. The discussion is grounded in the author’s escrevivências, as an Indigenous woman in the Amazonian urban context, and draws on collective experiences of strengthening identity, language, and ancestry, such as the Mother Tongue Study Spaces in Manaus. Within this scenario, the study points to the challenges faced by Indigenous families in the city due to the persistence of colonial mechanisms within schools, as well as the strategies of resistance that affirm education as a territory of struggle. From a decolonial theoretical-methodological approach, the study problematizes the coloniality of power and knowledge in childhood, emphasizing the importance of reconnecting with ancestral roots as a foundation for building pedagogies of their own. Thus, it defends the appreciation of Indigenous epistemologies as a condition for rethinking Early Childhood Education and presents epistemic disobedience as a political-pedagogical horizon capable of breaking with Eurocentric logics and proposing new paths for the education of Indigenous children in urban spaces.