Identity, Care and Rights: the Experience of Talking Circles about the Health of Indigenous People

Luna, Willian Fernandes; Malvezzi, Cecília; Teixeira, Karla Caroline; Almeida, Dayane Teixeira; Bezerra, Vandicley Pereira

doi:10.1590/1981-5271v44.2-20190309.ING

Abstract:

Introduction:

There is a historical fragility regarding the training of health care professionals working with the Indigenous Health System in Brazil and the awakening of the growing sensitivity for the promotion of intercultural dialogue is recognized as essential in this context. Thus, the project “Talking Circles about the Indigenous People’s Health” in the university emerged in 2016, developed in a partnership between medical school professors and indigenous students from the Indigenous Tutorial Education Program - PET Indígena - Health Actions, UFSCar.

Method:

This report is based on the qualitative documental analyses, aiming to present and discuss the experiences, perspectives and dialogues carried out during those meetings, the construction of diversity, the description of the activities performed and the exposure of their potentialities and limits.

Results:

Based on both Paulo Freire’s Culture Circles and active teaching-learning methodology tools, those meetings dealt with topics related to Indigenous People’s Health, the results of which were here grouped into three categories: Identity; Care; and Indigenous Rights. The Talking Circles format fostered the construction of new knowledge in indigenous health’s field related to different cultures, specific health policies, concepts of health-disease process, providing an initial approach on the indigenous health context in Brazil. Additionally, they provided a space with indigenous leadership that dared to indicate innovative perspectives on identity issues and health understandings, disease and healing processes, as well as raising the epistemology inherent to these populations.

Conclusions:

Based on the dialogue between different actors, it was possible to arouse interest of the health professionals regarding ethnic and cultural issues and give visibility to the indigenous people at the University. Moreover, it can be a first step towards the construction of optional interdisciplinary disciplines and the insertion of the topic in undergraduate school curricula in the health area.

Keywords:
Indigenous Peoples Health; Health Education; Problem-Based Learning; Indigenous People Health Professionals Training; Indigenous Population; Community-Institutional Relations; Talking Circles

[1] ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE
Willian Fernandes Luna. Departamento de Medicina da UFSCar. Rodovia Washington Luís, km 235 - SP-310, São Carlos, SP, Brasil. CEP 13565-905. E-mail: willianluna@gmail.com; willianluna@ufscar.br

Thematic groups	Central Provocations	Main concepts and contents worked upon
Identity Issues	What does it mean to be indigenous? (*)	Indigenous identity; Brazilian identity; Historical process of Brazilian colonization; Indigenous in contemporary times.
	What are the differences between indigenous peoples?	Concept of ethnicity and people; Linguistic diversity; Amerindian peoples.
	Indigenous people in the city: what prejudices do I have?	Prejudice and intolerance; Deconstruction of the idea of “acculturation”; Affirmative Action Policies.
Indigenous Health Care	What are the connections between health and culture?	Concept of Health; Concept of Culture; Sociocultural construction of the disease.
	Health education with indigenous people: can we do it?	Popular Education in Health; Community approach; Ethnocentrism.
	Teaching or learning in the context of indigenous health?	Cultural conflict; Learning from the differences; Intercultural dialogue.
	What are the specificities of indigenous women’s health?	Self-care of indigenous women; Indigenous women and community; Gender and generation.
	What is the meeting between biomedicine and indigenous people like?	The experience of illness; Respect for traditional practices; Cultural specificities.
	What should be taught for the work in indigenous health?	Respect and tolerance; Differentiated health care; Cultural competence.
	What are the relationships between cosmology and indigenous health?	Cosmology and complex planetary vision; Amerindian perspective; Relations between cosmology and health.
Indigenous Rights	Tutored indigenous individual or citizen?	Citizenship; Historical process of acquiring rights; 1988 Constitution.
	Are indigenous rights the same as non-indigenous rights?	Equities and inequalities; Historical colonization process; Activism and preservation of rights over land, education and health.
	Why is there a health subsystem for indigenous people?	Indigenous Health Subsystem (SASI-SUS); Principles of the National Indigenous Health Policy.
	Indigenous health as a right: is it necessary? ”	Differentiated health care; Basic structure of the indigenous health network; Special Indigenous Health Districts (DSEI).
	Municipalization of health: a premature death?”	Historical process of SASI-SUS creation; List of SASI-SUS and municipal networks; Challenges of SASI-SUS.
	Why should indigenous people be at the university?	Affirmative Actions and Diversities; Ethnic-racial relations in higher education; Affirmative Action local policy guidelines.