Cuidados populares em saúde: uso das ervas e de rezas em Santa Cruz/RN

Abstract

The use of nature articulated to the sociodiversity of peoples and communities, with their worldviews, knowledge and unique cultural practices, provide the therapeutic bases for variable culturais systems of care and healing in societies. That is why popular therapies, with their knowledge and practices, are intrinsically related to health territories and as an integral part of the sociocultural and economic reproduction of their communities. Reflecting on this social stage, this study aimed to map popular health care practices using medicinal herbs in a remote area of Northeastern Brazil. Therefore, we conducted semi-structured interviews with popular health care therapists in Santa Cruz-RN. From the thematic analysis of the narratives produced by our interlocutors, the following analytical categories emerged: 1) “Herbs and prayer practices”: the transmission of care; 2) “Health as the production of meaning in life” and 3) Meetings and disagreements of cultural health systems: SUS and the popular. Popular therapists, with their practices of cultivating herbs and praying, constitute a cultural resistance in health, as we find in dialogue with the scientific literature, and their practices and knowledge are promoters and protectors of health and healthy living spaces.