COMIDA É LINGUAGEM: REFLEXÕES SOBRE A CULTURA ALIMENTAR CAIÇARA COMO INSPIRAÇÃO PARA UMA EDUCAÇÃO DECOLONIAL

Resumen

This article aims to reflect on food culture as a way to inspire an education that is decolonial, starting from the understanding that food is not reduced to the biological dimension or to nutrient consumption, but constitutes a form of memory, belonging, knowledge transmission, relationship with territory, and world-making. Drawing on bibliographic review and reflections grounded in field research carried out with caiçara communities on Ilha Grande (RJ), it argues that traditional practices related to cultivation in swidden fields, home gardens, fishing, flour houses, recipes, cooking techniques, and food sharing configure a territorialized pedagogy. Such practices teach observation, temporality, reciprocity, care, reading and interpretation of the environment, and interdependence between humans and non-humans, seeking to challenge dichotomies such as nature/culture, theory/practice, and school/life. In this sense, caiçara food culture offers consistent clues for thinking about an education committed to the valorization of traditional knowledge, to reviving the sense of belonging, and to less colonial ways of teaching and learning. Recognizing food as language broadens the educational field and favors the construction of pedagogical practices sensitive to territory, memory and experience.