Reimagining Business Education Through the Pedagogy of the Little Bird: Acknowledging Tensions in Plural Decolonial Projects

Introduction

Scholars have denounced the persistence of limiting managerial beliefs within business schools, such as individualism and competition (Bastien et al., 2023; Ibarra-Colado, 2006); the silencing of actors and their knowledge (Duarte, 2020; Woods et al., 2022); the neglect of non-Western contexts and the privileging of neoliberal assumptions (America & Grange, 2019); the predominance of White-centric references and the assumed neutrality of the rational-scientific method (Ruggunan, 2016); and the glorification of openly racist thinkers (Imas, 2023; Sabino & Pinheiro, 2023).

In light of this, some scholars have realised the need for a critical management education in business schools that unmasks the entanglement between colonialism and neoliberalism (Manning, 2025). In this way, decolonial approaches have gained traction, emphasising the need to decolonise business curricula (America & Grange, 2019).

Despite growing discussions about decolonising management education, Indigenous knowledge systems and pedagogical approaches remain largely absent from the mainstream literature of organisation and management studies (Bastien et al., 2023). In addition, Guelman and Palumbo (2017) argue that there are few decolonial studies that discuss pedagogical issues and that start from practices and experiences.

Given these gaps, we recognise the need of recovering pedagogical possibilities that have historically been marginalised, especially those developed by Indigenous communities (Colbourne et al., 2020; Woods et al., 2022), capable of retelling silenced histories and recreating bridges between traditions historically separated (Faria, 2025). We also recognise the importance of reflecting about our own experiences, especially considering that, when incorporated into business schools, decolonial and Indigenous pedagogical possibilities present tensions. After all, decolonisation is not the opposite of colonisation but rather constitutive of it (Jammulamadaka, 2021).

By emphasising the tensions of decolonial projects – especially when incorporated into modern institutions – we do not intend to invalidate them, but rather to highlight their pluralistic nature. Recognising the tensions in plural decolonial projects involves a process of awareness-raising through accountability, in which internal dilemmas and silences are addressed, challenging the colonial power structure within business schools (Cavalcanti & Silva, 2024).

In view of this, the main objective of this essay is to reflect on the tensions of plural decolonial pedagogical projects in management education experiences at a business school. The experiences narrated were guided by Pedagogy of the Little Bird (PLB), developed by the Xukuru people of Ororubá, Brasil (we spelled Brasil and Brasilian with an “S” as a form of political positioning against the imperialist moves by the United States). PLB is a decolonial pedagogical framework composed of plural and counter-hegemonic principles, many of them considered counter-colonial. We argue that decolonial pedagogical projects marked by pluralism, such as the PLB, especially when incorporated into modern institutions, such as business schools, counter colonialism, capitalism and heteropatriarchy while, at the same time, highlighting tensions.

Thus, this narrative essay (Vince & Hibbert, 2018) is an effort guided by a decolonial ethical-political epistemological positioning, that articulates complex themes such as decoloniality (Walsh, 2013), pluralism (Segato, 2012) and the PLB based on counter-colonial cosmologies of bem conviver (well coexist) from Xukuru people (Ordônio & Feitosa, 2021). Methodologically speaking, this essay is based on the retrieval of memories, especially those of the first author, relating to her classroom experiences guided by PLB. Thus, the reflections presented in this essay arise mainly from the experiences and positions of enunciation of the first author – a non-Indigenous professor at a business school – and her dialogue with the second author – an Indigenous leader with a masters degree – shaped by dynamics of disadvantage and privilege.

Some contributions of this work to management education in business schools are to highlight the significance of Indigenous pedagogies for designing more inclusive curricula, to present practical experiences guided by Indigenous pedagogy, and to recognise tensions in plural decolonial pedagogical projects, when in dialogue with modern institutions.

Brief Theoretical Positions

In developing this work, we draw on debates within the decolonial critical literature that require further clarification. This literature recognises that global context is shaped by inequalities sustained by colonial modes of domination, which operate through binary classifications (S. B. Banerjee, 2022). These colonial modes of domination are linked to capitalism and heteropatriarchy (B. S. Santos & Cunha, 2022) and refer to social relationships based on the ethno-cultural and ontological inferiority of the other, which persists even with the political independence of the former European colonies (B. S. Santos, 2018).

Within this landscape, scholars view business schools as sites of power that frequently reinforce convictions that sustain colonial, capitalist and heteropatriarchal dominance (Bastien et al., 2023). The spread of these convictions in business schools, especially in Latin American countries, grew in the post-World War II context, when the management model of United States was disseminated as universal in an imperialist movement justified by the supposed danger of communism (Alcadipani & Bertero, 2012).

Thus, business schools often uphold epistemological homogeneity, privileging knowledge systems from what has become known as the Global North (Abdallah, 2024) and, consequently, maintain dominant economic structures (Manning, 2025). This can be observed in curricula that reinforce the US model of productivity; intimidate local initiatives; reduce context; silence actors (Duarte, 2020); impose a highly competitive and individualistic education aimed at creating the future of entrepreneurs (Ibarra-Colado, 2006); frame land and the environment primarily as targets for exploitation and privatisation (Bastien et al., 2023); and value the “primacy of individualism, self-interest, and the pursuit of wealth creation through profit maximization and economic growth” (Woods et al., 2022, p. 84).

Given this, it is necessary to develop critical and reflective pedagogies in management education that recognise “social structures and power dynamics and how they shape knowledge” (A. Barros, 2025, p. 119). Decolonial approaches have allowed this critical perspective, challenging truths present in business schools, such as the division of “mind versus body, theory versus practice, subject versus object, knowing versus doing” (E. C. Santos et al., 2025, p. 17).

We understand decolonial not as a state of zero coloniality, “but rather as attitudes, positions, horizons and projects of resistance, transgression, intervention, insurgency, creation and influence” (Walsh, 2013, p. 25). These decolonial processes are intertwined with the pedagogical dimension, since “social struggles are also pedagogical scenarios where participants exercise their pedagogies of learning, unlearning, relearning, reflection, and action” (Walsh, 2013, p. 29). Thus, inspired by the reflections of Paulo Freire, Catherine Walsh affirms that the pedagogies constructed in anti-hegemonic struggles enable the realisation of the decolonial project, tracing paths for reading the world critically and transforming society.

We believe that these decolonial processes inevitably provoke tensions and produce ongoing dynamics of decolonisation-recolonisation (Sauerbronn et al., 2023), especially when they are transposed to modern institutions. This occurs, among other aspects, because these processes are marked by pluralism that involves debate and deliberation, always exposed to historical influences and exchanges, capable of changing or circumventing customs and choosing alternatives (Segato, 2012).

Tensions have been observed in different so-called counter-hegemonic movements, such as in the case of White academics who endorse equity, diversity and inclusion, but ignore the epistemic injustice suffered by Black researchers (Muzanenhamo & Chowdhury, 2023); in the case of academic activism led by Black people who benefit professionally and materially from publishing texts that challenge whiteness, while remaining employed in White institutions that subordinate, exclude and marginalise Black people, especially women (Dar et al., 2021); or even in the case of this essay, which criticises the colonial logic of business schools and seeks to value knowledge developed in what has become known as the Global South while, at the same time, seeking validation from an academic journal from the Global North written in English – a language that has historically sterilised academic debate, reproducing power structures (Suzina, 2020) – to meet productivity requirements.

Xukuru People and PLB

The history of the Xukuru do Ororubá people is marked by a long-standing struggle for land and for a non-extractivist way of life – a resistance that has, at times, involved violent conflict. Today, the Xukuru inhabit a territory located in the Serra do Ororubá (a mountain range) in the state of Pernambuco, Brasil, and are distributed across more than 20 villages. Most of the population currently sustains itself through agriculture, selling their products in nearby towns. An important feature of Xukuru identity is their strong social and political organisation (Araújo, 2019; Ordônio & Feitosa, 2021).

It was through the struggle for the reclamation of Indigenous territories in Brasil during the 1980s, and with the 1988 Constitution, that a new educational policy began to take shape – one aimed at incorporating the cultures, beliefs and traditions of Indigenous peoples into school curricula (Ludermir, 2019).

The Brasilian institutional context was crucial and allowed this change in Indigenous education of the Xukuru people. In 1988, a new constitution was created, marking a new period of democratisation in Brasil after the fall of a dictatorial regime due to popular mobilisation. With this new constitution, important rights were legitimised, such as the self-determination of peoples (Brasil, 1988, art. 4), respect for cultural and artistic values, both national and regional, in basic education (Brasil, 1988, art. 210), and recognition of the social organisation, customs, languages, beliefs, traditions and original rights of Indigenous peoples over the lands they traditionally occupy (Brasil, 1988, art. 231). It is within this context that the PLB emerges.

PLB is provocative, reflective, and liberatory. It represents the Xukuru way of teaching-learning, one that aligns with plural ways of understanding the world and life called cosmologies of bem conviver (well-coexist), that is proposed as an alternative to the notion of buen vivir or bem viver (well-living), often co-opted by institutional discourses (Limonad, 2021). In this sense, bem-conviver emphasises the relational perspective inherent in the Xukuru way of life – one that values respect among all beings, human and non-human.

To understand these cosmologies of bem conviver it is essential to grasp the understandings of Xukuru people about themselves. The Xukuru construct multiple narratives about their identity – narratives that stand in stark contrast to the preservation of singular histories, as perpetuated by colonialism.

Among these narratives is one that asserts the term Xukuru of Ororubá refers to a bird called uru, now extinct, and to a tree known as ubá, with the people being recognised as the tree-bird people. These and other narratives demonstrate that the Xukuru people of Ororubá maintain a deep connection with elements of nature. This feature is also evident in the lived experiences of other Indigenous peoples, each of whom relates closely to specific territorial elements, in a interconnected conception of body-territory or territory-body (Haesbaert, 2020).

This understanding also entails viewing the land as mother. In other words, mother-earth is conceived as a territory-body, or “a great living being that ‘gives birth to us’ and ‘nourishes us’ in an indissoluble amalgam between human and ‘nature’” (Haesbaert, 2020, p. 85). In this way, two dominant views commonly upheld in Business Schools are challenged: the notion of fatherland, rooted in modern-colonial patriarchy (Haesbaert, 2020); and the belief that nature was created and placed under the dominion of human beings, understood as the image of a higher being (typically represented as male).

The PLB is thus situated within these rich, plural, relational and counter-colonial cosmologies, which emerge from the struggle of Xukuru people for their territory. Two of the core premises of the PLB are freedom and transformation, inspired primarily by the writings of Paulo Freire (2013), but also by M. Barros (2010), a Brasilian poet who associates bird with the idea of freedom, and Rufino (2019), an educator who proposes a pedagogy committed to the transformation of beings. These premises guide the PLB in its resistance to colonialism, capitalism, racism and heteropatriarchy, as well as in its pursuit of the empowerment of subjects.

Here, it is interesting to note that the dialogue between these authors and the sacred knowledge of Xukuru people can be understood as an example of the complex interactions that shape Indigenous communities and knowledges. The PLB has been re-elaborated through the lived experiences of the Xukuru people across history, characterised by pluralism. This pluralism (Segato, 2012) has been characterised by dialogues between elaborations from different places of enunciation that have something in common: the struggle against colonial violence, which denies the physical, cultural and epistemic existence of subalternised peoples.

Freire (2013) is undoubtedly a great inspiration for the PLB. While the main contribution made by this author is derived from the struggle of the poorest, in Rufino (2019), resistance originates in the struggle of Black people, and in M. Barros (2010), resistance is linguistic. This shows that decolonial struggles are plural insofar as they intersect with class, race, Indigenous and other struggles. They are also plural because they maintain a (never peaceful) dialogue with various modern institutions born of colonial logic, such as business schools. It is in this plurality that tensions inherent to projects such as PLB arise.

PLB at Business School

Since the PLB is strongly influenced by the agricultural processes carried out by the Xukuru people, marked by diversity and spirituality, one of the core principles is that there can be no full life in systems that aim for standardisation. Life always moves toward complexity or chaos, stands in opposition to limitations and classifications.

Inspired by this principle of valuing differences or non-standardisation, the first author has included counter-colonial authors in her classes, such as Antônio Bispo dos Santos, Ailton Krenak and Iran Ordônio (or Iran Xukuru). The writings of these authors were used in postgraduate courses to discuss topics such as counter-colonial modes of organisation, Indigenous thought and sustainability. These authors have led students to reflect on the plurality of knowledges, modes of organising and understandings of time, allowing glimpses of alternatives to the colonial, capitalist and heteropatriarchal model.

Specifically, the work of A. B. Santos (2015) presents the reality of quilombos and their organisational dynamics, grounded in polytheistic worldviews that enable the development of organic, circular and non-extractivist processes. Both the reading of this material and the lived experience in loco – such as when the first author, together with a group of graduate students and capoeira practitioners, visited the Quilombo dos Palmares, a symbol of Brasilian resistance – are pedagogical practices inspired by the principle of valuing differences or non-standardisation of the PLB.

However, it should be noted that, in the experience of the first author, this literature has been widely incorporated into postgraduate programmes, but not yet into undergraduate ones. We believe this issue warrants attention, given the need to broaden the horizons of students at this stage of their education. Some possible ways forward to address this issue – within the scope of the first author’s work – include incorporating decolonial and counter-colonial authors into subjects such as Social Management, Diversity Management and Sustainable Management, although it is recognised that this could also be done in other subjects.

Valuing difference leads us to another principle, which is inventiveness. The inventiveness is directly inspired by the poetics of M. Barros (2010), a writer who encourages the notion of the unword, described as “the word born for song – from the birds. The word without pronunciation, unwritten” (p. 368). This inventiveness enables the naming of what has not yet been named, and even the renaming of that which calls for new meanings. This form of inventiveness, tied to poetics, opens space for a plurality of everyday languages and grammars, as discussed by Rufino (2019).

The story of Salunará inspires reflection on this poetic inventiveness. Salunará is understood as the tree of freedom or the summit tree of the world, appearing in the enchanted landscape as a communion between sky and earth. Its canopy reaches the sky, yet it is nourished by the fertile imagination symbolised by its root-trunk grounded in the soil. It inspires inventiveness and the act of naming things and enchantments, bridging the material and the sacred.

In business schools, the poetic inventiveness can be applied in moments dedicated to writing practice. Rather than always encouraging scientific writing, at certain times we can ask students to turn to poetry as a way of expressing their perceptions of the topics discussed in class. This experience allows other vocabularies to be accessed, often connected to personal and collective histories from students, interwoven with affections. In these moments, playfulness and struggle occupy the same space, thematising life and the ways of defending it (A. B. Santos, 2015).

For inventiveness, coupled with the appreciation of difference, to occur, relationships that inspire trust are fundamental. In this sense, another important premise of PLB is caring. The bird – frequently referenced in the poetry of Manoel de Barros – is frequently used to express this premise, since it represents the ability to preserve the sweetness and beauty of the flower as it pollinates it, in a structural coupling where the flower helps the bird to evolve and vice versa.

In management education, such a stance can inspire educators not only in their relationships with students, but also in how both teachers and students relate to their territories. Inspired by this idea of caring, the first author engaged in a project in which business school students were encouraged to practice relaxation during the first few minutes of class. This project was funded by the university under a call for proposals for innovation in undergraduate education. It was implemented in various courses – such as Macroanalysis of Organisations, Financial Mathematics and Research Methods in Business Administration, for example – depending on the availability of the lecturer teaching the course. This experience proved valuable for reflecting on how it is possible to reinvent the classroom, interrupting a content-driven logic and going beyond the purely intellectual dimension.

When considering the existence of other possibilities in the classroom, we are encouraged to access other ways of knowing, which connects us to another important principle of PLB: interculturality. This principle is at the heart of PLB since it connects different forms of knowledge, namely, the Xukuru cosmologies of bem conviver, Freirean emancipatory pedagogy and poetry.

The development of courses that mobilise questioning theories, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Business School, has been a practice guided by the principle of interculturality in the experience of the first author. At the postgraduate level, the courses created up to the time of writing this article were Social Markers of Difference and Intersectionalities in Organisations, Decolonial Approaches and Management and Non-Extractive Research. At the undergraduate level, the course created and now included in the permanent range of elective modules in economics and business administration programmes is Diversity, Difference and Intersectionality in Organisations. In these courses, engagement with Black, Indigenous, disabled, transgender and many other theorists and experiences enables students to challenge the colonial conventions that predominate in the scientific field of management, pointing toward alternative ways of knowing, organising and living.

Thus, this principle has challenged assumptions regarded as singular truths in the field of management, such as the one best way (Duarte, 2020; Ibarra-Colado, 2006). These critical engagements and the contact with other ways of thinking enrich repertoires of students, enabling them to become more reflective about themselves within society – in which an anti-Black and anti-Indigenous historiography predominates (Faria, 2025). Thus, interculturality can be understood as a concept that is close to the notion of pluralism (Segato, 2012), and is capable of challenging “the theoretical-conceptual and methodological claims of academia, including its assumptions of objectivity, neutrality, detachment, and rigor” (Walsh, 2013, pp. 66–67).

Still on the premise of interculturality, in the Xukuru educational context, this principle seeks to enchant minds, highlighting the sacred and spiritual dimensions of the Xukuru ways of life. That means recognising oneself as nature and fostering its diversity without endangering the life of the Earth itself. Enchantment is also fostered through a process of reconnection guided by the principle of cosmopoetics of return, rooted above all in ancestrality. This ancestrality is directly tied to belonging, which relates to the understanding that we come from something, somewhere and someone. In this way, memory plays a fundamental role in the cosmopoetics of return, as it allows us to reconnect with our ancestrality and thus regain a sense of belonging.

Some experiences with business school students have followed the premise of the cosmopoetics of return, as in the context of a extension project, in which we invited a master (in Portuguese, we say mestre) of popular culture who encouraged students to reflect on their ancestors, and the rich knowledge they possessed that made it possible for us to be here today. The title of the university extension project was Vivências para o empoderamento pessoal e coletivo (Experiences for personal and collective empowerment), a training programme open to both academic and non-academic audiences, carried out without funding. It was a moment of sharing stories of ancestrality that deeply marked the first author, leading her to realise the importance of accessing our histories in order to feel a sense of belonging.

In addition to the cosmopoetics of return, regenerative cosmonucleation also emerges as a way of embodying and living enchantment within the PLB. It is a “nucleation that is not merely technical or methodological – it is sacred” (Mindêlo, 2021, para. 18). In this approach, sacred places – such as bodies, stones and others – are seen as points of power due to their spiritual force, and are actively included in the regenerative process.

Based on this premise, it is understood that everything can be an point of power, and that all living beings and elements can be regenerated. An experience guided by the principle of regenerative cosmonucleation took place during a visit to Xukuru territory with students, where it was possible to listen to elder leaders and participate in a ritual in the enchanted forest. This experience was led by the second author of this essay during a visit organised by lecturers and students from another undergraduate course, even before the first author had heard of the PLB. This was an important moment of reconnection for all involved, allowing us to recognise ourselves as nature and points of power that can transform our reality. It also highlights the importance of business programs engaging with others to foster experiences and learning opportunities such as these.

Discussion

The dialogue between the two authors that makes possible the reflections presented here was only possible due to an institutional context of democratisation of higher education in Brasil, based on a policy of interiorisation that built public and free university institutions in cities located in the interior of Brasilian states. This context reveals the privileges experienced by the authors – especially the first author – considering that in public higher education institutions, autonomy and freedom of thought are still valued, not being almost entirely co-opted by the market – as in private educational institutions in the country.

The institutionalisation of public educational institutions in contexts far from major urban centres made it possible to establish exchanges between the academic community and various social movements, organisations and groups that were still underrepresented in these institutions. But here we can see an expressive tension: the maintenance of the division between “us” (academics, researchers, teachers) and “them” (social movements and collectives), which remains even when, within these institutions, we are inspired by plural decolonial pedagogies. This division maintains the hierarchies that constitute colonialism, capitalism and heteropatriarchy, since it separates those who are worthy from those who are unworthy, as Latin American authors discuss when referring to the coloniality of being (Maldonado-Torres, 2007). Thus, the institutional context imposes possibilities and limitations.

One of cosmological premises explained before is the appreciation of difference. This premise goes beyond the glorification of monocultures, common to colonialism in imposing hegemonic ways of thinking (B. S. Santos, 2017). This is a crucial premise for management education, as it opens space for questioning assumptions often taken for granted, such as the idea of the one best way, developed in the U.S. industrial context in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which continues to be taught uncritically in business schools (Duarte, 2020), due to the influence of US and its imperial strategy which imposes a hegemonic management model.

This premise also can be applied in business schools through encounters among diverse forms of knowledge that extend beyond Western, modern and Cartesian ways of knowing, fostering a movement toward epistemic pluralism (Segato, 2012). Nonetheless, despite the efforts presented before, tensions arise in these experiences: business schools continue to be structured in such a way as to exclude different modes of organising, producing and disseminating organisational knowledge, and their arguments and justifications lubricate the global capitalist machine (Abdallah, 2024). Furthermore, power hierarchies are not easily dismantled, and little or no effective participation by marginalised groups has been evident in defining what actions will be taken to diversify these institutions (B. Banerjee et al., 2020).

This tension is revealed in countless other experiences inspired by the premises of the PLB, such as those that mobilise the premise of poetic inventiveness. Although these experiences promote rich moments in the classroom and transform worldviews, funding policies have not given due importance to practices derived from this premise. The experience from the second author as a researcher and Indigenous leader highlights the non-acceptance of poetic writing in projects that would benefit the community due to its perceived lack of objectivity – an exclusionary and colonising criterion. Furthermore, the rules for academic publication often maintain a requirement for objectivity and overvalue concepts and definitions that follow a positivist, modern and colonial logic of knowledge construction (Fals Borda, 2009), disregarding alternative ways of arguing and writing. We, as academics, end up submitting to these colonial rules (and writing in languages that are not our own) to express and give visibility to our decolonial or counter-colonial questions – a contradiction similar to that experienced by Black researchers (Dar et al., 2021).

The premise of inventiveness, when combined with the principle of caring, although allows us to reinvent the classroom, removing its recurring content-based focus, also encounter structural tensions. These tensions often occur given the growing commercialisation and corporatisation of higher education, with greater pressures and demands on students and academics, indicating a broader phenomenon of academic or university capitalism (B. S. Santos, 2020; Undercommons Collective, 2016). Thus, caring inspired by PLB, when applied to a context marked by neoliberalism, becomes something sporadic.

Linked to the principle of caring, as previously presented, are the premises of interculturality, cosmopoetics of return, and regenerative cosmonucleation. All these principles offer an important contribution by opening up new paths of critical action on the notion of development. In this sense, these principles have in common the valuing of involvement – especially with the territory and ancestry – as an alternative to development (Ordônio & Feitosa, 2021), which has long been problematised by critical literature (Esteva, 2010). Despite that, we understand that modern institutions are still heavily based on the logic of development. They still operate from a disconnect between the capitalist imaginary – that endless economic growth is possible – and the natural limits of ecosystems (Wright & Nyberg, 2016).

This disconnect is reinforced in business schools by the pursuit of novelty and growth, contradicting the premise of ancestral redemption, maintaining one of the binary classifications that marks the colonial mode of domination (S. B. Banerjee, 2022) – namely human being and nature; in addition to ontologically and epistemologically inferiorising native populations (B. S. Santos, 2018). Once again, we observe the tension between the need to nurture other ways of relating to the world and the institutional demands that lead us to its degradation.

Thus, PLB has questioning potential when applied to business schools, while dealing with structural tensions inherent in decolonial projects (Jammulamadaka, 2021; Sauerbronn et al., 2023). This is evident in the case of the almost non-existent recognition of Indigenous knowledge, even when there is a pro-diversity discourse. The processes of erasure have historically affected the Indigenous knowledge systems, as well as many other epistemologies of traditional communities (Muzanenhamo & Chowdhury, 2023; B. S. Santos, 2017, 2018; B. Santos & Meneses, 2014).

Becoming aware of these erasures is essential in management education, so that students may recognise other ontological and epistemological possibilities. The experiences narrated above, concerning the reading of quilombola and Indigenous authors, as well as the oral learning with masters and elder leaders, are guided by the need to recognise other sciences and rationalities.

However, the relations between Indigenous communities and the university are still marked by a structural and epistemological injustice (Muzanenhamo & Chowdhury, 2023), even as we strive to question it. When brought into academic debate, Indigenous knowledge still has to rely on conceptual and methodological crutches in order to be validated by peers, perpetuating forms of oppression such as theoretical apartheid, which excludes anything that does not fit into the self-referential framework of management science; and the vigilantism of validity, which monitors and punishes methodological and format deviations, silencing relevant knowledge due to a supposed lack of rigour imposed by groups that have always been able to express themselves in this field (Cavalcanti & Silva, 2024). These findings from the literature have been observed in the experiences of the first author, especially in the processes of submitting papers to renowned scientific journals in what has become known as the Global North.

Thus, producing alternative knowledge that can be used in management education in business schools is an endeavour that requires extra effort, time, and persistence – something that researchers working in precarious contexts, without funding, and marked by neoliberal pressures for productivity almost never have. This context, although experienced to some extent by all academics, is more noticeable in private educational institutions, especially in the Brasilian case.

Final Considerations

In this essay, we present Indigenous decolonial pedagogical possibilities for business schools based on experiences, addressing existing gaps in the literature. Furthermore, we identify the tensions present in these experiences, highlighting the challenges in mobilising plural Indigenous pedagogies in modern institutions.

We believe that PLB provides possible paths towards a more inclusive curricula based on a particularly relevant type of pluralism. The premises of PLB identified throughout the narrative were freedom and transformation through education; valuing of differences or non-standardisation; poetic inventiveness; caring; interculturality; cosmopoetics of return; regenerative cosmonucleation; questioning of the logic of development. These premises, as discussed before, contribute to management education by incorporating a plurality of knowledge, organisational methods, languages and grammars, learning possibilities, and engagement with the body-territory – questioning colonial ideals such as development.

At the same time, the recognition of tensions contributes to the literature by de-romanticising the relationship between Indigenous and modern knowledge, highlighting structural issues that sometimes limit and sometimes allow digressions from the status quo.

These tensions, throughout the narrative, led to the identification of generative questions – a term inspired by Freire (2013) – capable of broadening the debate and provoking new agendas:

Supplemental Material