ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND INTERCULTURE

thinking a curriculum from the tropics

Abstract

This article refers to the results of research developed with funding / CNPq / CAPES. Among the objectives is to promote reflection about the possibilities of building a curricular knowledge from an intercultural perspective. Two epistemological assumptions were taken from Humberto Maturana’s work as references: the Biology of Love (BL) and the Biology of Knowledge (BK), as well as the philosophical propositions of the Brazilian Cultural Anthropophagy (BCA) for the construction of an environmental education (EE) from the tropics. These propositions are anchored to the idea that the building of knowledge can be made through different didactical, methodological, pedagogical and curricular practices. In this case we are proposing the BL and the BK as epistemological principles, mentors of the human learning process in the search for a break with the culture of domination of a patriarchal origin. To sum up: (1) in the counterpart to a curricular organization hegemonized by reason, we propose BL and BK as epistemological assumptions, for a curricular organization that has love as our founding emotion, as human beings, as social beings, capable to build a social and ecological fairer world and (2) an EE from the tropics referenced on the BCA philosophical assumptions that longs to break with the subordinating practice of copying and imitating models without its proper contextualization. The BA activities are a privileged moment, to broaden our curricular conceptions such as to create alternatives that seek to break with the very ancient practice of copying and imitating rather than creating and innovating.