Mental suffering and Belo Monte
Psychological suffering, Belo Monte, mental health, intermedicality, colonialism, medicalization.
This study explores the concept of psychological distress as an impact of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant. By shifting the focus from conventional psychiatric diagnoses to a broader understanding of psychological suffering, we aim to bring to light the complex dynamics of trauma and resilience from a social perspective. The methodology starts from a clinical case as a social case, both from the experience of the Clínica de Cuidado (Clinic of Care) and the Altamira Bem Viver (Well Living) Network, exploring the encounters between a patient's symptoms and the issues raised by their ethnic group. The investigation of the case continues by seeking to understand the specific cosmopolitical and relational dimensions of the Arara people, particularly during contact in the period of the Trans-Amazonian Highway implementation. A continuity between different colonial processes is perceived, with a change from the nature of epidemics of infectious-contagious diseases causing genocides during the Trans-Amazonian period to the epidemics of psychiatric diagnoses in the context of contamination of the way of life and ethnocide in the Belo Monte period. Indigenous perspectives of understanding illness phenomena and care are mobilized in conjunction with the perspective of listening as an ally for the formation of a field of intermedicality and the weaving of a network in mental health care in intercultural contexts and human rights violations.