About the depressing universal: study of a case of Amerindian resistance to biomedical capture

Abstract

Objective In the midst of assimilationist onslaughts, the Xavante determined the migration of children to Ribeirão Preto/SP, where they would grow and observe the white people. One of the recent protagonists of this migration experienced intense psychic suffering, diagnosed and treated by western medicine. He showed significant improvements; however, only when he finally returned to the village of origin he got completely rehabilitated. The objective of this work was to go beyond the canonical biomedical narrative, showing how the consideration of multiple forms of “translation” allows us to glimpse an indigenous phenomenon in its complexity. Method For this purpose, ten unstructured interviews conducted with this young indigenous individual and some of his main interlocutors in the urban environment (host family, schoolmates, religious space) were reviewed. Results Plural narratives have emerged that focus on what is experienced but it is suppressed by the universalizing biomedical discourse. Conclusion The youth experienced a process of negotiation between universes of meaning, whose synthesis culminated in enhancing the Xavante peoples self-assertion and appropriating their own voice, among others.