Abstract

LANGDON, Esther Jean  and  GARNELO, Luiza. Articulation between health services and “indigenous medicine”: Anthropological reflections on policies and reality in Brazil. Salud colect. [online]. 2017, vol.13, n.3, pp.457-470. ISSN 1669-2381.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18294/sc.2017.1117.

This paper contributes to the dialogue between the social sciences and social medicine in Latin America by exploring therapeutic pluralism in indigenous health policies and services in Brazil. It reviews recent anthropological research, concepts and current debates to critically examine Brazilian indigenous health policy and its concept of “differentiated care,” which proposes articulation between official health practices and indigenous therapies. A number of contradictions and tensions are present in the structural organizational of the indigenous health subsystem at the national level and in the daily practices of health teams at the local level. Guided by the hegemonic ideology of biomedicine, health professionals fail to recognize the dynamics and agency expressed in indigenous health practices.

Keywords : Health of Indigenous Peoples; Health Policy; Traditional Medicine; Anthropology; Brazil.

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