Black badge: an anthropological study on the so-called psychiatric disturbances among indigenous peoples

• Grant number: 12/24436-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: January 01, 2014
• End date: May 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Dominique Tilkin Gallois
• Grantee: Juliana Rosalen
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this project is to reflect on the way some of the indigenous peoples of the Guiana region interpret, feel, live, and propose responses to events nominated by biomedicine and psychology as disorders, psychotic breaks, suicidal tendencies and depression. The hypothesis that guide this research is that the indigenous public health care is based only on the administration of controlled drugs, disregarding the local understandings, interpretations and solutions for the mentioned events. The methodology proposed for the research has the therapeutic itineraries as a starting point and seeks to enlarge its significance to dimensions beyond doctor-patient relationship, taking into account the narratives of the affected person, close and distant relatives, pajés, people from other local groups, missionaries, sorcerers, among others. Although the discussions held on medical and psychological fields help to understand specific approaches and practices related to such events occurring among indigenous peoples, it is ethnology, in its dialogue with other theoretical perspectives (anthropology of disease, ethnopsychoanalysis, ethnopsychiatry), that can provide new possibilities for this debate. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

ROSALEN, Juliana. Black-Box: an anthropological study on \altered states\ diagnosed by biomedicine as mental disorders among the Wajãpi do Amapari. 2018. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.