Brincando terecô: corpo, experiência e pertencimento das crianças no Terreiro Nossa Senhora Santana

Abstract

This study analyzed how the experiences that traverse children’s bodies in the Terreiro Nossa Senhora Santana produce religious and ethno-racial belonging, based on an anthropological approach that articulated childhood studies, ethnography, and debates on coloniality and ethnic-racial relations. The study aimed to understand how children’s bodily experiences in the Terreiro Nossa Senhora Santana produce religious and ethno-racial belonging, considering their relationships with spiritual entities and their everyday experiences in the terreiro. The research adopted ethnography as its methodology, employing techniques such as participant observation, focus groups, as well as drawings and photographs produced by the children themselves. The results indicated that children actively participate in the everyday life of the terreiro, producing bodily and religious knowledge (Rufino, 2019) through experience, establishing spiritual kinship ties with the enchanted beings (Haraway, 2021; Ahlert, 2021), and articulating relationships with peers and adults in the constitution of community bonds. It is also observed – drawing on debates on Black identity (Munanga, 1999) and the coloniality of power (Quijano, 2005) – that the terreiro constitutes a pedagogical, affective, and political space in which children construct positive meanings about themselves and develop everyday strategies to confront religious racism. The study concludes that children’s belonging in Terecô is produced in a relational, collective, and situated manner through bodily experiences that intersect spirituality, ancestry, and collectivity, contributing to the expansion of debates on childhoods, Afro-Brazilian religiosities, and the production of alternative epistemologies.