Indigenous Refugees Research Articles

Migration in times of pandemic: SARS-CoV-2 infection among the Warao indigenous refugees in Bel\xe9m, Par\xe1, Amazonia, Brazil

BackgroundThe emergence of the new causative agent of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the city of Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and its spread worldwide, led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic. The disease has caused high mortality among traditional populations and the most socially vulnerable groups such indigenous and refugees. The present study aims to investigate the prevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in the population of Venezuelan indigenous Warao refugees residing in private and public shelters in the city of Belem, capital of Para State, in the Brazilian Amazon.MethodsOne hundred one individuals of both sexes (43 men and 58 women) with ages varying from 18 to 77 years (average of 36 years) were investigated. Whole blood samples were collected and subsequently separated into plasma and leukocytes. Serological analysis was performed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay - ELISA (Anti-SARS-COV-2 S1 IgG, EUROIMMUN, USA).ResultsThe results indicate a positive serum prevalence of 83.2% (84), of which 77.6% (45/58) were females and 90.7% (39/43) were males. An indeterminate profile was observed in 6.9% (7), where it was not possible to confirm the presence of antibodies, and 9.9% (10) individuals were negative for IgG antibodies.ConclusionsThe finding of the high seroprevalence of IgG anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies reveals a high exposure of the Warao population in Belem to infection with the new coronavirus. These results underscore the importance of maintaining epidemiological surveillance with testing in traditional populations due to the high possibility of spreading the virus, especially among the most socioeconomically vulnerable groups, which depend exclusively on the Unified Health System (SUS), such as refugees and indigenous people.

Speaking for the Refugee Other: Missioneering, White Saviourism, and the Politics of Ethnographic Representation in Luis Alberto Urrea's Across the Wire

Luis Alberto Urrea's Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border (1993) provides a harrowing perspective on the struggles of a group of mainly indigenous refugees and migrants who live in one of Tijuana's many colonias—informal settlements with no utilities or public services—where they barely survive by picking trash. Written from notes that Urrea compiled while he was a translator for Baptist missionaries from 1978 to 1982 and then again in the 1990s, Across the Wire is deeply indebted to colonial modes of representation that have characterised Western anthropological knowledge production, and specifically ethnographic writing, from its inception. The memoir cum ethnographic work cum journalistic account aims to call attention to the hardships that refugees in Tijuana face and elicit sympathy for their plight. Yet, despite Urrea's intention to humanise his subjects, Across the Wire depicts them as helpless, in need of outside deliverance, and ultimately inferior to Urrea and his missionary crew, reproducing a white saviour narrative that reifies the myth of white, Western superiority. In the process, Across the Wire unwittingly reveals the pernicious workings of white saviourism and illustrates how it is contingent on an exploitative relationship in which the purported “helper” is the actual beneficiary.