The Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil in Facing the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article aims to analyze how the indigenous communities of Brazil have organized autonomous actions and strategies to confront the Covid-19 pandemic based on the articulation among their own historical experiences, their health conceptions, partnerships with scientific communities and other segments of society that support the indigenous struggle. The research articulates the political and theoretical modernity/coloniality/decoloniality movement with indigenous experiences and conceptions of health, body/spirituality and territory. For this task, we adopted an undisciplined methodology based on conversation, solidarity and analysis of discussions, sites, lives, bibliographic productions and official documents prepared by indigenous organizations and partner entities. The research has pointed out that the situation of greater vulnerability of indigenous populations is not only due to biological factors. Also, indigenous people have denounced the invasion of their territories, racism, the lack of sanitation policies, food insecurity, the circulation of people not belonging to the community (missionaries, miners, loggers, army), the difficult access to hospitals and the precariousness of the necessary resources for individual and collective asepsis have worsen the spread and lethality of the virus. Likewise the current indigenous struggle in this pandemic scenario, this article is not limited to a health discussion, yet it aims to contribute to think about the relationship between the pandemic and the dissemination of anti-democratic policies that simultaneously affect the right to health and the territory of these populations.

Social inequality and vulnerability of Indigenous peoples facing COVID-19: a perspective by stakeholders in the lives

“…However, several leaders reported a lack of clarity regarding the protocols issued by the MS. The planned actions go against Indigenous traditions: 'However, one can perceive the absence of intercultural dialogue and the epistemic and ontological violence implemented by the Brazilian State' 7 .…”

“…A recurring statement in the lives was the lack of actual planning by the Federal Government. Leaders and associations signaled the delay in helping the villages, needing to mobilize to produce and distribute combat and prevention resources 7 .…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the profound inequalities of Brazilian society in dealing with this disease, and Indigenous populations are the most affected given their structural vulnerability, which is not always evident in aggregated data at the national level 1,2 . The production of knowledge about social inequalities associated with health conditions often adopts the perspective of socioeconomic determinants and rarely addresses ethnic-racial dimensions, which denotes the historical process of invisibility of minority groups [3][4][5][6][7] . The recommended measures to contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, such as social distancing, is new sociability with varying difficulty levels in different social contexts 5, 6 .…”

Disparities in Excess Mortality Between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Brazilians in 2020: Measuring the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The vulnerability of Indigenous Brazilians—whether living in traditional lands or urban areas—to COVID-19 is shaped by a complex interplay of broader determinants of health that include social marginalization, poor housing conditions, structural racism, and colonial legacy [ 16 , 18 ]. Information collected by the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the widest movement of Indigenous Peoples from Brazil, reveals that 161 different Indigenous Peoples (53%) from all regions of Brazil were directly affected by the pandemic in 2020 [ 19 ].…”

“…Indigenous elders are at increased risk of death from COVID-19 due to advanced age, impacting their central role in Indigenous cultures and epistemologies as traditional knowledge keepers [ 16 ]. Other health and socioeconomic effects of the pandemic on Indigenous communities may include difficulties in accessing health services and obtaining food supplies, exacerbating a context of epidemiological vulnerability and food insecurity [ 18 , 21 ].…”