Práticas corporais: o corpo-cidadão como expressão da promoção da saúde

Abstract

The present work discusses body practice in the health promotion context, for its possibility to contribute to health uniting body and culture. There is an understanding that body practices are socially determined, however they are strictly stimulated by the disease preventive discourse. The work was conducted in the light of Bourdieu critical sociology. The aim of this study was to analyze the social determinants of body practices in the field of health promotion. The study took place at two cultural centers in the city of Belo Horizonte and the body practices analyzed were regional capoeira and dance. Nine capoeira players and nine dancers have participated in the study. The fieldwork used the body-map storytelling technique conducted with the participants through at least three meetings. The semi structured interview guides started with the body contour and unravel the participants social and life conditions. The products (images, narratives and discourses) were analyzed from a sociological perspective. Guidelines and standards regulating research involving human beings were addressed (466/12 resolution). The empirical categories were built under the bourdieusian concepts habitus, bodily hexis, domination and social capital. The results showed that health notions present in the body practices corroborate with the biomedical perspective and transits between eating habits, water consumption and physical activities. In contrast, the practices promote the awakening of the body indicating new ways for the bodily hexis of the agents. Data analysis indicated that the feminine bodies possess an aesthetic socially determined by masculine domination. It was evident the manifestation of the daily difficulties related to the multiple journeys of women: domestic and professional. It also emerge from the agents the Brazilian racism discourse, revealing the double determination on the black body, which in addition to prejudice is distinguished by its social class. In this sense, the body practices rescue the Afro-Brazilian culture. The Cultural Centers showed themselves spaces capable of enlarge the social capital of the agents. In these places acts the citizen-body. It is conclude that the analysis of body practices in the health promotion context requires an attentive look at the social determinants of health. Bourdieus theory contributed with the construction of an analytical model capable of unveiling the body and the structural relations of gender and race. The findings reveal the body singularities, but also evidence how the historical interpretations compose the habitus. The sharing of cultural knowledge between the groups promotes the acceptance of black historicity in the training of corporealities. Even in unfavorable scenarios, body practices (re) signify in the spaces of the city intensifying the experiences of the body. Keywords: Body Practices, Health Promotion, Social Determinants of Health, Habitus, Body, Gender, Race.