Salubá: o agenciamento do cuidado da palavra de mulheres seniores e a epistemologia afroindígena

Abstract

This investigation is a contribution to studies of the agency of the word of senior black women that provides care based on an Afroindigenous epistemology. I sought to understand the trajectory, memory, learning paths and the power of storytelling, prayers, songs and silence in the daily practices of these women and their cosmologies. Despite its potential, studies on the agency of the Afroindigenous word for care have little prestige in studies on traditional knowledge in health (in the social sciences, collective health and “ethno” approaches to pharmacy, biology and others), which tend to prioritize research of the materiality of the “leaves”, minerals and substances of animal origin (of their active principles) in the healing processes. In this work, the ethnographic approach is situated in confluence with “escrevivência” (writing,living and see one self) as methodologies used to achieve the experience and the care process. Throughout the fieldwork, data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, through filming, audio recordings, from 2019 to 2023, in addition to memories of my childhood with the grandmothers. The research sought to understand the therapeutic agency of the word of older women with their “children” - each and every person younger than them - in the listening process, one of the therapists being my grandmother, as a senior reference that “manufactures bodies” through of everyday life in the body and mind of those who ask for his blessing. In conclusion, I point out that the study on the power of agency of black women from the perspective of Afroindigenous epistemology can be an important tool for the anthropology of health in everyday life.