Assumindo as diferenças: índios, aids, programas de prevenção.... uma contribuição metodológica a partir dos pressupostos do psicodrama.

Abstract

The general purpose of this investigation was to contribute to public health policies related to interventions aimed at preventing STDs and AIDS among indigenous populations. It consisted in an ex-post, qualitative research employing the multiple-case study method within an ethnographic approach. Analyses were focused on the interventions carried out from April 1999 to March 2000 in three villages of the Terena ethnic group — Ipegue, Bananal, and Água Branca — located in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, southwestern Brazil. The methodology adopted for the interventions was that provided by the theoretical and technical corpus of psychodrama. In order to situate in proper context the analysis of these interventions, a literature review was performed on the biomedical, sociological, and anthropological aspects of AIDS, its epidemiology in Brazil and among the indigenous population, and on the mechanisms available for confronting this epidemics, including actions launched by government agencies and by civil society organizations. The analysis describes the several stages that made up the implementation process, namely: contacting the communities; sensitizing and mobilizing their populations regarding the risks posed by STDs and AIDS; preparing local agents in situ, who should then be in charge of devising procedures for relaying information on these diseases within the communities; and propagating information within each community. Psychodrama was found to provide an effective framework, both in terms of theory and techniques, to support an intervention in a specific cultural setting. It enabled the indigenous populations included in this intervention to strengthen their identity, to recover their ethnic values through active social participation, and to empower their members to foster their own social development.