“Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo”: contribuições da obra de Ailton Krenak para a educação ambiental

Abstract

The work entitled "Ideas to postpone the end of the world: contributions of Ailton Krenak’s work to Environmental Education" is a dissertation presented to the Graduate Program in Scientific and Environmental Education at the Federal University of Lavras. The main objective of the research is to analyze the ideas presented by Ailton Krenak in his book Ideas to postpone the end of the world and to explore possible dialogues between these reflections and Environmental Education. The dissertation is structured around three main thematic axes present in Krenak's work: Time and Space, Earth, and Memory, Ancestry and Collectivity. These axes are approached from the worldview of native peoples, proposing a reassessment of traditional conceptions of development and sustainability. Krenak criticizes the distancing between humanity and nature, pointing out that the contemporary environmental crisis is rooted in this distancing, deeply rooted in Western and Eurocentric thought. The author of the dissertation adopts a qualitative approach, performing a critical analysis of the content of Krenak's work, exploring how his ideas can contribute to a critical and plural Environmental Education, which values ancestral knowledge and indigenous traditions. Krenak's work is considered an opportunity to reflect on current practices and an invitation to reconnect with nature, integrating a critical view of the Western model of development and the need for environmental education that contemplates cultural diversity and historically oppressed voices. The research concludes that Krenak's work offers valuable contributions to Environmental Education, but warns of the need for a critical analysis of the proposed solutions, avoiding the idealization of indigenous cultures as the only answers to complex environmental problems. In addition, the importance of an education that is connected to the interests of the popular classes and that recognizes.