Contesting the reservoir : Guarani-Mbya criticisms of zoonosis, race, and dirt in the Jaraguá indigenous land, Brazil
Abstract
In Brazil, epidemiological understandings of zoonosis have historically articulated with race and class hierarchies, placing so-called non-modern bodies at the core of etiological theories and sanitary interventions. I describe how the Guarani-Mbya people living in the Jaraguá Indigenous Land in the city of São Paulo question the racialized narratives that human-rat contact is a major driver of infections such as leptospirosis. By analyzing Indigenous concepts of body, disease, and dirt, I suggest that the Guarani-Mbya disease ontology reflects a criticism of urbanization, in that it is considered to have pathogenic effects on the lives of Indigenous peoples and rats.
Citation
Silva Santos , B 2023 , ' Contesting the reservoir : Guarani-Mbya criticisms of zoonosis, race, and dirt in the Jaraguá indigenous land, Brazil ' , Medical Anthropology , vol. 42 , no. 4 , pp. 354-368 . https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2023.2199356
Publication
Medical Anthropology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0145-9740Type
Journal article
Description
Research leading to this article was funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP [Grant number 19/03297-0] and by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number 223327/Z/21/Z].Collections
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