How do illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia affect indigenous populations? This is the theme developed by the postgraduate professor at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM). Renan Albuquerque, in the book “Mental Suffering of Indigenous People in the Amazon”, which was released this week.
Renan Albuquerque’s research was carried out from his personal and professional experience with two indigenous ethnic groups in the Amazon – Sateré-Mawé and Hixkaryana – whose territories are located in the municipalities of Parintins, Barreirinha and Nhamundá, in Amazonas, on the border with Pará.
Initially, the book will be distributed to Graduate Programs at UFAM and the University of São Paulo (USP). The publication is in digital format and is free. According to Renan Albuquerque, the book marks the creation of the Amazonas Digital Publishing Laboratory (LEDA), which is part of the Center for Studies and Research in Amazonian Environments (NEPAM).
“Mental Suffering of Indigenous People in the Amazon” is edited according to standards of the Open Journal System and Creative Commons 3.0 platforms, which allows free access to publications. It will be available on the website of Revista Eletrônica Mutações, starting on May 10th.
Renan Albuquerque, who is a columnist for the agency Real Amazon , holds a degree in journalism, a master’s degree in psychology and a doctorate in Society and Culture in the Amazon. He is currently a professor at the Social Communication / Journalism collegiate at UFAM in the municipality of Parintins (369 kilometers from Manaus). In 2013, he joined, as a permanent professor, the Postgraduate Program in Society and Culture in the Amazon (PPGSCA / Ufam). Before starting his academic career, he worked for 10 years in the editorial offices of newspapers in Manaus.
Albuquerque explains, in the presentation of his book, that his research sought to observe the extent to which village-city migration tends to influence the dynamics of daily life and the ordering of the individual and collective quality of life of Amerindians located in regions considered non-traditional in the Lower Amazon. , eastern state of Amazonas.
He states that the work was guided by the social experience and human integration in the municipal centers of the region, which allowed reflections on the situation of the villagers of the Andirá-Marau (sateré-Mawé) and Nhamundá-Mapuera (hixkaryana) lands, admittedly in traffic in urban environments in the municipalities of Parintins, Barreirinha and Nhamundá, in the lower Amazon River basin.
“Municipalities have been receiving significant contributions from Indians who migrate for different reasons, with countless lives lived under the sign of reconstruction. The daily life of indigenous people, from the moment they leave the villages and experience the westernized universe, as it presents itself, has tended to be thought from the perspective of interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, close to sociocultural psychology and ethnology”, he explains.
The research received funding from Banco Santander, through the Santander Universities public notice. Renan Albuquerque, 34, gave an exclusive interview to the agency Real Amazon about your search. Read the interview:
What led you to research this topic?
I have lived in Parintins since 2009, where it is common to find indigenous Sateré-Mawé and Hixkaryana migrants on a daily basis. This experience – and the interest in indigenous populations since when I worked in newsrooms in Manaus – made me turn to the theme of research, whose segment has been approached mainly by scientists from Fiocruz (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz), such as Luiza Garnelo and Maximiliano Souza, from USP, like Dominique Gallois, and Aparecida Vilaça, from the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the National Museum, to name a few.
Did the idea for the research arise from your observation of the reality of indigenous people? Did any specific fact catch your attention?
Themes related to mental disorders have been calling my attention since I started my Master’s in Psychology, in 2006, at the Federal University of Paraíba. But only after the doctorate did I get funding and support from other researchers to start studies in the area. I particularly cite encouragement from Drs. Danilo Guimarães (psychology) and José Guilherme Magnani (anthropology), both from USP. As for a specific fact that led me to carry out the research, it happened in 2012, when a friend presented persistent depression and suicidal anxiety, and only then did I notice that the problem was collective in Parintins and also related to migrant Indians.
How can the displacements (migration) of indigenous people from their communities of origin to an urban center, differences and sociocultural impacts affect and influence psychological changes?
The partial results of the research indicate that there are four factors that tend to foster mental disorders among Sateré-Mawé and Hixkaryana migrants. They are: housing, contact with others, language barriers and loneliness in the city. It is evident that the daily contexts of coping with these problems are different from person to person and not everyone who experiences such difficulties develop disorders. But these questions represent “triggers” driving delusions, depressions, obsessions, schizophrenia and anxiety to varying degrees.
How would you conceptualize “mental suffering” among indigenous people, under the paradigms of Western knowledge?
In the field of cultural psychology, mental suffering tends to be considered any and all psychic disorders marked by delusions, daydreams or ravings to varying degrees. Many diseases characterize the mental suffering of indigenous people in the Lower Amazon, but the most common currently is depression driven by sociocultural factors.
Do mental illnesses among indigenous people have the same concepts and cultural influences among non-indigenous people?
No way. Many studies have already indicated that the concepts of health and illness are different for indigenous and non-indigenous people, as are the concepts of good, beautiful, wealth, power, etc. between world societies. However, the mental states of suffering of migrant Indians are similar to those of the people of the city because they are formed from similar problems. Hence the big question: to what extent does this similarity of the problem also represent a similarity for the solution? In other words, to what extent should the mental disorders of indigenous people be treated equally via synthetic drugs, as is done with the non-indigenous population?
Do mental health pathologies among indigenous peoples have treatment? How are they served?
There is treatment, yes, and it is done in most cases in Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS) located in urban areas close to villages. The Indians are interned to receive aid in the city on a voluntary basis and when they feel better, in general, they choose to return to the villages. When they get worse, they return to the city. They stay in that traffic. In short, what is happening today is much more an attempt to carry out treatments through medicines prescribed by psychiatrists in urban environments than to seek help from traditional indigenous medicine in the villages. With that, I’m not saying that the treatment via synthetic drugs is inappropriate for the traditional ones, only that it is chemically addictive in an overwhelming way to the body and mind of the indigenous people.
Faced with the precariousness of indigenous health care for physical diseases, how to treat a mental illness?
In the book, an attempt is made to reflect on the possibilities of shamanic treatment, concomitant with the prescription of medicines for mild, medium and even severe mental suffering. I had news of shaman actions that worked and alleviated schizophrenic delusions of indigenous patients. For me, that was encouraging. Therefore, I think that regarding stable conditions of anxiety and depression, pajelança works are essential.
Have you identified cases of suicide among the sick?
There was the case where an 8-year-old girl attempted suicide by jumping off a ravine. She couldn’t kill herself. She was found unconscious, badly injured, near the Porto da Francesa area in Parintins. After recovering, in the hospital, she said that she threw herself on the rocks because she wanted to die and find her father, now deceased, because he was calling her in dreams. She also said that she wanted to die because she couldn’t return to her home village to do pajelança work in memory of her father’s soul.
Has there been any increase in mental disorders among indigenous people in the study region in recent years?
We cannot talk about increase or decrease because unfortunately there is no time series of records. There are data from 2010 to today. We have to wait at least a decade to postulate comparisons.
Of the mental disorders mentioned in the survey, which are the most common?
Depression and anxiety are the most common sufferings around the world. As for family members of indigenous people with disorders, two situations arise: in one scenario, there are families who take care of their patients; in another, there are families who abandon their sick so that they die.
