“THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE!” CHILDREN’S PLAY AT A QUILOMBO COMMUNITY IN SANTA CATARINA

Abstract

This paper reflects on the incursions I made in two “quilombos” (communities originally established by escaped Afro-Brazilian slaves) in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina as part of my doctoral research in education. The main motivation was to understand and analyze, through an ethnographic study, the place that children of the quilombos occupy, their practices and experiences, and what they express about the educational relations that are established in the institutionalized space of childhood education, and in the space of the quilombo community where they live. The theoretical perspective focused on a dialogue between the fields of Pedagogy, Sociology of Childhood and Anthropology. Although research was also conducted on early childhood education, I nevertheless include in this text observations based on the places and times occupied by children in the quilombos, mentioning, in particular, their different ways of being, and of expressing themselves in moments of play. The research shows a high degree of complicity, autonomy and creativity to play among children in the quilombos, and demonstrates that their forms of expression or sociability can give rise to other ways of thinking about institutionalized education.