Zoonotic divergences: humans, rats and micro-organisms in Guarani-Mbya villages of Jaraguá Indigenous Land (São Paulo/SP, Brazil)

Considered as a global public health problem by the World Health Organization and a national matter in Brazilian health policies, leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease which attaches and detaches humans, animals and microorganisms in particular historical, political and cultural contexts. In the Jaragua Indigenous Land, a small territory surrounded by the city of Sao Paulo (Brazil's largest metropolis) wherein live the Guarani-Mbya people, there are recent records of leptospirosis cases diagnosed by the municipal health service. My project will investigate how health, illness and disease are sustained through a set of heterogeneous practices enacted by indigenous people, governmental health agencies and health practitioners within the Jaraguá Indigenous Land. Through an ethnographic approach, I will produce research outcomes able to inform community-led programmes of disease and rodent control in the particular social, cosmological and ecological context of Amerindian villages.