EPISTEME AND DISCOURSE IN INDIGENOUS SCHOOL EDUCATION

curricular policies in Brazil and Colombia

Abstract

The article analyzes, from a historical and epistemological perspective, the constitution of the human sciences within the policies and curricular processes of Indigenous school education in Colombia and Brazil. Methodologically, it adopts a Foucauldian approach based on the concepts of episteme, discourse, and epistemic shift, with the aim of understanding how educational knowledge and practices have been configured in these contexts. The tenth chapter of Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things (“The Human Sciences”) serves as the central theoretical framework for unveiling the relations between power and knowledge that have shaped curricular policies directed at Indigenous peoples. The results show that Indigenous epistemologies have, over time, been integrated, marginalized, or transformed within the educational systems of both countries, revealing persistent tensions between traditional knowledge and hegemonic educational models. In this sense, the study highlights how the human sciences have contributed both to the institutionalization of dominant discourses and to the emergence of forms of epistemic resistance. It concludes that it is necessary to rethink educational policies from a decolonial perspective that recognizes and values Indigenous knowledge as a fundamental component of teaching and learning processes, thus enriching the understanding of Indigenous education and questioning the power structures that sustain the production, legitimization, and circulation of knowledge.