Ethnics minorities and social representations: appointments on the social psychologist’s entry in Quilombola community

Abstract

The public politics directed to the remaining communities of Quilombos do not entirely respond to their necessities. It is presented here part of an ethnographic research, whose main aim is to investigate how knowledge and traditional practices, related to health and illness, of a Quilombola community are articulated to (post) modernity. The analysis of the information anchors on the theory of the social representations (sociocultural and dialogic perspectives) and on the Black health studies. The focused community in this research had prior negative experiences with health care researchers, what impacted directly on our study. To establish good rapport and dialogic relationships we had to (re)think our role as social psychologists, our preconceptions and social representations. Only after that we were able to get familiar with the community and understand their practices. It is concluded that the ethnographic research, as well as their multiple crossings, represents a challenge to the social psychology.