Diversidade cultural em Cabinda: estudo sobre as identidades e práticas culturais dos Bawoio do Yabi

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand the cultural practices experienced by ethnic Bawoio of Yabi in the province of Cabinda- Angola. It helps us understand the educational processes and identi-ty affirmation experienced by Bawoio, articulated to the diversity and Angolan mosaic ethnic complex, linguistic and cultural. Starting from the assumption that identities understood as construction, produce and are produced in cultural encounters and disagreements experienced by different peoples through cultural practices. These, even in the face of adversity and change of the current context are (re) created and contextualized. The following practices were investigated: the Tchikumbi (house of ink), the M'ukuela (Marriage / Alambamento), understood as those that embody itself values of the worldviews of these people, their modus vivendi and operandi while men and women producers of tradition and culture, which should be preserved, molded, re-signified and transmitted from generation to generation. In the con-text of the practices they were, not in an exhaustive mode, and the Zinongo and Zingana (proverbs). Understanding these dynamics was possible through a methodological approach that not only an-chored in a perspective of qualitative research, but was based on a hybridization of choices, from cul-tural studies to historical accounts, coupled with ethnographic research, the field work, interviews, observation and photographic recording. Oral history through narrative interview was the adopt-ed method in order to collect and cherish the memory of the Sobas (the oldest men in the vil-lage, the chiefs), elders and elderly interviewed. The survey also sought to (re) value the role of the narrator and his experiences. The historical, geographical, social and cultural landscape of the context and reality studied, as well as the tensions, traditions and changes were also considered. The traditions and values of Bawoio of Yabi are part of an educational process of redesigning and transforming the existing culture. This education comes from dynamic pro-cesses, often permeated by conflicts between tradition and nowadays changes. Thus, changes to these practices were recorded, revealing changes between what the Soba (the oldest man in the village, the chief) and elders keep as memory and what the younger generations and the families practice today. These changes are due to a number of causes, such as, history, poli-tics, the legal-normative field, state intervention, new ways of communication and globaliza-tion processes. We conclude that cultural practices express dynamics identity and conflict, positioning itself as a hostel and unequivocal support of the Angolan national construction and identity. This research is located in the context of the African diaspora. In this sense, un-derstanding the cultural and historical aspects of Angola, Cabinda and in particular the Bawoio of Yabi can be considered as a further step in the complex study of the interrelations between history and African culture and African-Brazilian. Knowing the practices investigat-ed here as movable and immovable property of the culture and heritage of Angola identity. May therefore be a further contribution to the implementation of the study of African history in Brazil, a compulsory of the Brazilian basic education of public and private schools, as a result of a change in the Article 26 of the Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education by Law 10.639/2003.