‘Rio Negro, We care’. Indigenous women, cosmopolitics and public health in the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to understand the ‘Rio Negro, We Care’ campaign in its cosmopolitical implications for discussions of global health and human rights. This article is part of a collaborative process centred on the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira and the Alto Rio Negro region of Brazil. This campaign was developed by the Department of Women of the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Rio Negro (DMIRN/FOIRN) at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It had significant effects on the pandemic experience in the region during 2020. The Brazilian responses to the COVID-19 pandemic highlight complex, intersectional and neocolonial processes, associated with what has been understood as the necropolitics led by the Brazilian federal government. At the same time, such responses shed light on the limitations of the biopolitical orientation of public and global health for the management of the pandemic. We seek to narrate a cosmopolitical intervention located ‘in culture’ as a counterpoint to this process. Our analysis highlights questions in the field of global and planetary health milestones, such as the conditions of legitimacy for cosmological knowledge and care technologies, or the ontological implications of the persistent biopolitical bias of mainstream public health interventions.