In this paper, there is a reflection on the tension between the principle of universality and the cultural specificity of users of the Public Health system, inserting the discussion about collective health in rural land settlements in this axis. After presenting some statistical data about health conditions in rural land settlements, ethnographic data on a project of university extension accomplished in a rural settlement located in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre (RS) is presented. A dialogic model of intervention in the field of public health, respecting cultural differences and including alternative therapeutic practices to the biomedical model is discussed. As conclusion, some reflections are made on the different uses of the institutional devices starting from an opposition between the analysis of Foucault about the technologies of power and the critical observations introduced by Michel de Certeau, more concerned with analyzing the uses of the devices, the arts of doing that subvert the models of discipline.
Public Health Policies; Social exclusion; Land Settlements; Traditional Knowledge; Land reform
