Munduruku cosmography in movement: Health, territory and survival strategies in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

This article examines the Munduruku people's perspective on the environment, along with the relation between their knowledge and customs and their use of preventive medicine and therapeutic practices. Territorial occupation, exploitation of available resources, and social life affect Munduruku bodies to the extent that maintaining social relations and protecting the environment are considered necessary for the group to multiply. This article demonstrates the intrinsic relationship between environment and health by presenting the Munduruku perspective on how the cosmos functions and the efficacy of self-attention practices, which are necessary for individual and collective biosocial reproduction. The connection between pragmatic, social, ontological, and political dimensions of strategies which the Munduruku have developed for their group to survive and maintain its territory in the face of the challenges, struggles and threats that emerge from cosmo-political and inter-ethnic situations is also explored. Finally, Brazilian indigenous policy is shown to be contradictory: while it invests considerable resources in health assistance, it simultaneously ignores traditional knowledge of health and environment in such a way that economic development policy undermines the conditions necessary for well-being.