Artesãs de Aritapera/PA: técnicas e processos em uma perspetiva Etnomatemática

Abstract

This study discusses aspects of informal learning, evidenced in a group of women artisans living in the city Santarém / PA, Aritapera region, and how these learning styles and informal knowledge interconnect with the perspective of the Ethnomatematics Program. Their social practices, reflected in their regional craft, show particularities involving the transmission and production of knowledge, organization of communities of practice and evidenced symbolic exchanges during the preparation work of ornamental gourds. Methodological procedures used in this research were organized, according to an ethnographic approach, from observation and inference of construction processes and incisions recorded on surfaces that create the regional gourds. Research results indicate that the iconography reflected in bowls, indicate motivations especially related with social representations evidenced in the community dynamics and commercial relations involved. Possible social interactions existing in this context thus permeate a permanent flow of diversified multifaceted knowledge exchange. The production and ornamentation of gourds are closely related to a kind of technical and instrumental knowledge, which involves the community as a whole. At the same time, it adds particular elements to the practices of the artisans, closely connected with nature, revealing a dynamic knowledge integrated and balanced with the environment, without disregarding the fact that any environmental alteration threatens the cultural practice, bringing changes to its modes of production.

Keywords

• Socio-cultural practices
• Informal knowledge
• Ethnomathematics
• Symbolic representations
• Craftswomen