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

Abstract

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.