Indigenous population in pandemic times: reflections about health in a decolonial perspective

Abstract

The pandemic of the new coronavirus enables discussions about health related to protecting life by adopting covid-19 prevention and contention measures, based on the World’s Health Organization guidance. In Brazil, the debate involves issues of class, race, gender, and ethnicity, exposing vulnerabilities to which certain peoples are historically submitted beyond the action of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. This article presents qualitative documental research about the meanings produced regarding the health of indigenous peoples in face of the covid-19 pandemic focusing on news reports published in the site of the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil between March and September of 2020. The 65 publications were organized in three categories: Actions from official departments and government; Territorial issue; and Political organization and indigenous resistance, and analyzed based in theories of decolonial studies. The results point to an increase of violations of the indigenous peoples’ rights by the current executive office of the federal government, by aggravating environmental crisis, the morosity and absence of emergency public policies against covid-19, also evidencing the resistance of these peoples by an ancient struggle that values knowledge and traditional healthcare practices.