Indigenous Health: Structural/Institutional Racism, Internal Colonialism and Necropolitics

Abstract

Various actions that caracterize our political daily lives constitute hallmarks of a Necropolitics, meaning a policy based on death as acceptable collateral damage founded on Structural/Institutional Racism. An example of such is the use os bacteria and viruses as strategy of elimination of indigenous peoples, which was reported by several researchers throughout the history of the relatoons between the Brazilian state and these peoples, so it is not an issue of episodical events, but of a policy of treating them as disposable. This article aims to contextualize the actions of the State through its Indigenist Policy in the area of Health, drawing a line of analysis between the Structural/Institutional Racism and the Internal Colonialism, exposing state action during COVID-19 Pandemic as a Necropolitics strategy. We use documental analysis as methodological procedure to analyze written texts, such as official papers, interviews and newspapers. The analysis was made from excerpts of these documents, problematizing the enunciated discourses through Decolonial Theory. The recent federal government (2018-2022) orchestrated a great setback in indigenous policy in Brazil, threatening rights previously assured by the Federal Constitution of 1988, and the Pandemic unveiled several Necropolitics and Internal Colonialism strategies, exposing the prevalence of an absolutely racist/xenophobic logic towards the indigenous peoples.