Toward a Broader View of Health in the Anthropocene The COVID-19 Syndemic and the Clash of Cosmographies in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil (original) (raw)
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The newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of COVID-19, including severe respiratory symptoms with an important lethality rate and high dissemination capacity. Considering the indigenous people of Brazil, it is feared that COVID-19 will spread to these communities, causing another stage of decimation. Despite advances in indigenous health care in the country, there are still many challenges due to the social vulnerability of this population, whose lands continue to be illegally exploited. Based on these considerations, this article discusses challenges in caring for the indigenous population in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.
2020
by Matula Laboratory, a group of researchers in Anthropology. Its objective is to understand how peripheral areas apprehend sickness. The stories gathered by the Matula Laboratory can be read in Portuguese on their Instagram account. For indigenous peoples and Maroons[1] of contemporary Brazil, colonization is the foundational element of a dystopia that since is evidenced by a series of violations into their lives and their living space. But the will to live gives rise to, in contrast, a transformative movement that manifests itself rst within traditional territories, political archipelagos[2] that assert themselves in opposition to capital and countries. With the Covid-19 pandemic, these strives for re-existence are what the Matula Laboratory is seeking to bring to light, by emphasizing the contradictory speeches of traditional populations and the people living in city outskirts, as opposed to o cial statistics that are deliberately under reporting the infections and deaths of the most vulnerable populations. Our group is composed of professors, master's and doctoral students, as well as representatives of indigenous communities and quilombolas. Menu (EN) » COVID-AM. https://www.cnrs-univ-arizona.net/menu-en/covid-am/discourse-experiences-and-resistance-of-traditional-populations-and-people-living-in-city-outskirts-on-the-dystopic-world-of-covid-19-in-brazil/
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Polifonia, 2021
In this paper, the relationship body, knowledge, and social practices within a decolonial perspective is addressed through a study on discourses of care and caring in the global COVID-19 syndemic by communities representing three vulnerable groups in Brazil-the Indigenous peoples, the Quilombolas, and the Landless Rural Workers Movement. These groups have been severely affected by the disease as national containment policies have failed to respond to their specific needs and disregarded their philosophies and practices of care. Our corpus comprises images, videos, and written materials produced by members of these communities and by government authorities on the matter of COVID-19. They were gathered from social media and websites under the thematic, qualitative enunciative criteria "COVID-19 + minority groups in Brazil". A transcultural and discursive analysis of the data was performed to answer the following research questions: How have these communities resisted the necropolitics of the Brazilian government in the syndemic? How is care being discursivized by them? Our results point to a concept of care that is always collective, from which it is impossible to think of a form of human existence that could be only individual. Such concept materializes a non-Eurocentric, non-capitalist form of intelligibility on living collectively and caring, a view in which to live means to care and for a dignified existence.
Editor’s Note: Indigenous Communities and COVID-19: Impact and Implications
Journal of Indigenous Social Development, 2020
As the editors we honor those who have contributed to this special issue, Indigenous Communities and COVID-19: Impact and Implications. In this time of great uncertainty and unrest we felt compelled to seek a call for papers that would examine aspects of our traditional cultures focused specifically on COVID-19 and its disruptions to the dimensions of our wellbeing and the restoration of wellness. This virus has impacted every individual and family on this planet, and, has helped coalesce the pervasive intersectional struggles of Indigenous Peoples. The articles selected are compelling in their ability to cast light over the shadows of discord and air of conspiracy surrounding this pandemic. They acknowledge that the grief and anguish buried beneath the soil of intergenerational trauma are only half our stories told. COVID-19 has given recall to examine the pervasive injustice of western power and privilege. Our people are dying at disproportionate rates not only from the direct respiratory effects of this virus, but as a result of a failed system that is inherently racist. We see our people; our mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, children, and young people in great peril because of systemic health inequities and economic exclusion. At the core of the articles presented is Compassion and Purpose. What has been shared represents the collective voice of resilience, resistance, adaptivity, and inventiveness against forces of oppression. These have been met with global resistance expressed in "Black Lives Matter", "The Me To Movement", "Standing Rock", "Ihumatao", "The Protectors of Maunakea", "First Nations Peoples Worldwide" and many other Indigenous demonstrations of collective sovereignty. While it is imperative to acknowledge fundamental shifts in social relationships, policies, and social work practice these articles remind us that we need to sit for a while in the uncomfortable parts of our human psyche. If left unattended and unexamined they cause us sickness, pain, and spiritual Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License Volume 4, Issue 1
Saúde em Debate
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deep inequalities of Brazilian society to address this health-related catastrophe. This study aimed to understand the repercussions of COVID-19 on Brazilian Indigenous peoples and how they organize in the context of social inequalities and vulnerabilities. Qualitative research was conducted based on the analysis of ‘lives’. The search was performed on YouTube using descriptors “coronavirus and Indigenous” and “COVID and Indigenous population”, totaling 56 live events, which allowed us to analyze different perspectives on the fight against the pandemic showing that the starting point for COVID-19 prevention, surveillance, health care, and communication among Indigenous peoples is different from the rest of the population. The leading role of the Indigenous civil society is highly relevant to the fight against the pandemic. The profound inequality and the multiple vulnerabilities of Indigenous peoples are realities that must be understood to o...