Masters of caixa and viola

Abstract

This text assumes that the greatest volume of writings on popular education derives from the effort of several researchers to analyze and reflect about the practices of individual and collective subjects, aiming mainly to make subordinate groups aware of the causes of their respective poverty and lack of assistance. Such writings usually also seek to overcome this condition by sending adults and youths to school and promoting actions within the popular culture, political training and community mobilizations. That, in many ways, subjects and groups construct their own forms of social cohesion, which are essentially production of meaning and knowledge, has usually not been taken into account. This happens expressively in the dances, entertainments and collective manifestations of popular religiosity. An example proposed in this text is that of the Folia de Reis (Folly of the kings), when the agents of the ritual communicate these meanings and knowledge, even from home to home, when they visit annually the devoted inhabitants. © 2007 CEDES.