Between the body and the sacred: feminine spirituality and nursing care in indigenous mental health
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30681/rtakaa.v3i1.14319Keywords:
Feminine spirituality, Indigenous knowledge, Intercultural nursing, Mental health, Integral careAbstract
The study analyses, through a bibliographic review, the relationship between spirituality, gender, and mental health within the Sateré-Mawé Indigenous communities (AMISM), emphasising nursing as an intercultural and humanised practice of care. Its objective is to investigate how spiritual knowledge and feminine cosmologies influence psychosocial balance, proposing an expanded perspective on mental health care. This bibliographic and qualitative research is grounded in anthropological and ethnographic frameworks, articulating spirituality as both a therapeutic and epistemological dimension of care. The interpretative analysis reveals that feminine spirituality operates as a structuring force for community cohesion and the preservation of collective emotional well-being, sustaining networks of solidarity and resistance amid historical and cultural tensions. The results indicate that nursing, when engaging in dialogue with traditional knowledge, broadens its ethical, epistemological, and political roles, becoming a mediator between science and ancestry. The study reaffirms that recognising spirituality as a constitutive element of mental health enables more sensitive and integrative psychosocial practices, contributing to the humanisation of care and the valorisation of Indigenous epistemologies. It concludes that spirituality, when understood as a therapeutic and cultural language, redefines the role of nursing by promoting a model of care that respects the symbolic territory of Indigenous women and strengthens the bonds between body, faith, and community.
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