Popular health surveillance in traditional fishing communities and the ecology of knowledges in the fight against COVID-19.

Abstract

Considering the public health emergency of international importance caused by COVID-19, artisanal fishing workers, engaging in a dialogue with Brazilian leaders and scholars, created an Observatory on the impacts of this pandemic on fishing communities in March 2020. The purpose of this article is to analyze the experience of popular surveillance of fishermen and fisherwomen's health through daily reports produced at the Observatory. It is a monitoring process that allowed broadening the recognition of the diversity of vulnerable populations' ways of life that intertwine health, environment and work. The study used a qualitative, horizontal and emancipatory methodology and sought approaches to the practice of the ecology of knowledges, with the following results: shared construction of information and knowledges based on heterogeneous social experiences; practice of collective ombudsman with the appreciation of knowledges built in social struggles); joint assessment of public health inequities, territorial conflicts, and environmental, structural, and institutional racism; guidance of social leaders and fundraising through public notices. Thus, the dynamics and horizontality of learning based on solidarity and social emancipation from inter-knowledge are revealed.