Educational approaches to an archeology related to traditional communities of RDS Amanã and FLONA Tefé, Amazonas

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to understand the role of socialisation of archaeological heritage with traditional communities living in Sustainable Use Conservation Units in Amazonia. The study developed actions with the communities of Boa Esperança, in the Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve (RDS Amanã), and Tauary, in the Tefé Natural Forest (FLONA Tefé), both located on the Middle River Solimões, Amazonas state, Brazil. By listening to the life stories of older leaders, teachers and young people, it represents a hybrid between education, archaeological ethnography and oral history, occupying a place at the frontier of these disciplines. The study also develops practices of heritage education in these communities, responding to a constant, already present demand of the families and schools. Due to the community-based organisation of the families, and the role of kinship and mutual help that affect people’s life stories, there exists a strong local grammar which invites the development of collaborative research. In this way, by means of learning with the families, the study presents some avenues for a possible translation of collaborative archaeology to a “kin-making archaeology” centred on the inherent dialogue with educational work. The actions of socialisation are diluted in this approach, since they constitute all the archaeological work carried out with these communities. Also favoured is the production of non-linear histories which correlate the conceptions and local memories of materiality with the timeframe of long-term indigenous history produced by archaeology. A result of the study is  the latent impact of our practices with the families, and the emergence of a rich context for the continuity of this work, especially within the perspective of “becoming kin”. It also discusses the favourable context for the creation of community museums, which can contribute towards managing local cultural references and to heritage management, understood as a means and not an end as of itself.