Social movements and popular health practices in State of Paraíba, Brazil

survey of experiences and reconstruction of its main historical landmarks (1960-1990)

Abstract

Social movements are made of groups of people who share the same territory, collective identities and organize themselves in a democratic and dialogic manner. From these, health care productions integrated with local realities emerge and Paraiba is historically recognized as the cradle of these actions, especially those with theoretical-methodological orientation of Popular Health Education. This research aimed to highlight the history of these groups and their subjects, recording their experiences. To this end, we resorted to a study with a qualitative approach and descriptive character, proceeded by 26 individual semi-structured interviews with social actors, from which the personal and collective historical landmarks of these subjects were extracted and systematized for the construction of a timeline. It was observed that in the period referring to the Military Dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985), many of the experiences were articulated by sectors of the Catholic Church. In other periods, the articulations were carried out by unions and minority groups, popular communities and students, with the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) being the most expressive group present in the trajectories. In this way, the substrate produced will be configured as a collection for other researches, as well as being useful in disseminating the memory of the groups and their historical contributions.