This research assumed the purpose of investigating how women healers are affected in their
practices with elements of healing in the city of Castanhal (PA). In this sense, it addresses
the geographical location, the profile of women healers in the municipality of Castanhal and
the know-how in the midst of urban anthropization, the elements of material and immaterial
healing of the benzection and their adaptations and difficulties in healing practices.
Therefore, the investigation presented the qualitative approach with descriptive-exploratory
procedures and developed under an anthropic look with the methodological bias of
ethnomethodology. The techniques used were: participant observation, informal
conversations, audiovisual records, field notebook and interviews with five women healers.
The analysis of the data identified that the women healers are located in two different zones,
four of them are located in the Area of the Compact City of Priority Occupation (ACPO)
and corresponds to the respective neighborhoods: Novo Olinda (Dona Dedê), Caiçara (Dona
Rosilda), Milagre (Dona Gertrudes), São José (Dona Maria) and a live in Predominantly
Residential Zone (PRZ) corresponding to the Japiim Set (Dona Sabá). The profile of the
healers comprises the age group between 62 and 94 years old, they are mostly widows and
Catholics, born in Pará. with an average performance of 62 years in the work of benzection
and who inherited the gift of benzection from mothers, fathers and / or grandparents. The
process of urban anthropization is marked by industrialization, businesses and services,
producing different ways of acquiring its elements of healing in the craft of benzetion, in
addition to revealing anguish and yearning for them, caused by the scarcity of such elements,
with a close adaptation relationship, which leads the healers to carry out their practices with
the elements cultivated in their own backyards in the face of continuous urban growth. It
was found that they are organized in micro-territories that structure an urban network of
reciprocity and solidarity, which promotes exchanges of values and interpersonal dialogue.
The healers women of Castanhal treat their gift as an intrinsic and legitimate element and as
a gift from the divine. So their practices present genuinely Amazonian craftsmanship
anthropization that will survive in the face of the interrelationship of the urban and
continuous growth of the city. The presence of benzection is configured as an act of
resistance from a rural past that tenses and eases urban geographical imagery. Through their
narratives, it is noticed that the action of urban anthropization on their healing trades ends
up overcoming the difficulties with adapting to new elements in their practices. The
appreciation and recognition of the work of women healers in Castanhal is a necessary action
to value and maintain the blessing and the blessing in the municipality, in addition to being
a powerful instrument to face the dehumanization crisis.
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