Trasformazioni Guaranì

Silvia Lelli's research, prompted by the Teko Guaranì association, investigates the complex relationship between traditional Guarani culture and Western-style education in Bolivia, aiming to inform the training of indigenous anthropologists. Key findings and insights include:

• The research critiques historical colonial dynamics, where Western researchers produced knowledge while indigenous people were merely objects of study. It emphasizes the need for an independent Guarani anthropology derived from their unique worldview.
• Lelli uses Thomas Kuhn's concept of "paradigm" to analyze Guarani culture, distinguishing between the "shamanic paradigm" (daily sociocultural construction) and the "Western paradigm" (planned, institutionalized cultural production).
• A Guarani myth illustrates this divide: indigenous people chose music (sound world), while non-indigenous chose writing (word world).
• Schools in Guarani communities act as "multidimensional border zones," where local cultures are partially occidentalized, and the Western school model is partly indigenized, creating unique hybrid cultural flows.
• The research employs linguistic anthropology to analyze how language constructs social reality and power relationships, focusing on "micro cultures" and "cultural flows" within everyday interactions.
• A historical overview of education in Bolivia reveals a legacy of exclusion, assimilation policies, and attempts to impose Western models, from missionary schools to various state reforms.
• The 1994 Educational Reform, while promoting constructivist and participatory pedagogy, often failed in practice due to a lack of state structures and resistance from central governments, particularly concerning indigenous languages and cultures.
• Lelli identifies two main dimensions of Guarani cultural construction: "acted culture" (daily life, embedded in the shamanic paradigm) and "planned culture" (intellectual-led, aligning with the Western paradigm). Both are referred to as "our way of being."
• The study examines specific community cases: Javillo (a "model school" revealing independence of paradigms), Palmarito (where traditional myths coexist with globalized mathematics/informatics), and communities rejecting or selectively engaging with schooling.
• The concept of "Karai" (non-Guarani/whites) is explored, showing its evolving meaning from prophets to "cunning" and "Christian," reflecting the historical power dynamics.
• Lelli notes "family resemblances" between the Palmarito preschool's didactic methods and Célestin Freinet's active pedagogy, which aligns with the cooperative and community-based learning present in the shamanic paradigm.
• However, the "conscientization" approach, often used to empower indigenous communities, can be Eurocentric and fail to genuinely incorporate local perspectives, perpetuating passive roles in school settings.
• The imbalance between the Western scholastic and shamanic paradigms is attributed not to inherent functionality but to power dynamics rooted in colonization, where the shamanic paradigm is often deemed negative or marginal.
• Despite the imbalance, the shamanic paradigm persists "in acts" through language, sounds, images, and physicality, creating its own realities and identities, often invisibly or silently influencing local responses to schooling.
• The research advocates for "equally intercultural" paths that acknowledge and integrate indigenous paradigms, moving beyond "modernization equals occidentalization" towards a more complex and diverse future, celebrating the "exotopia" of existing outside and valuing differences.