Contribution short abstract:

In dialogue with calls to integrate Western and Indigenous knowledge, our interdisciplinary team developed "planetary healing" (PH). From a case study of São Paulo floodplains, PH reimagines public policies to heal body, spirit, ecology, and social injustices.

Contribution long abstract:

In December 2024, Brazilian Indigenous scientists emphasized the urgency of bridging Western and Indigenous knowledge systems to foster reciprocity and care for human and ecosystem health (Levis et al., 2024). In dialogue with this and other calls for transformation, over the past two years, our interdisciplinary team of Brazilian and German anthropologists, biologists, Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian activists, and family doctors has developed the concept of "planetary healing" (PH). This framework merges Indigenous/ancestral knowledge and humanities perspectives with Western scientific approaches to planetary health.

Planetary healing proposes an expanded vision of health, transcending the absence of disease to focus on repairing body, mind, spirit, and ecology. It promotes pragmatic, ethically grounded practices aimed at healing rather than merely fixing the harm caused by human actions. Embracing decolonial approaches (Baquero et al., 2021), we argue that Brazil’s perspective, rooted in Global South realities, offers unique insights.

We develop our contribution form a case study in São Paulo’s urban floodplains, where the resurgence of Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian medicinal practices symbolises healing strategies rooted in resistance and "re-existence." Such practices re-signify historically stigmatized spaces, like disease-associated waters and grounds, into regenerative systems. From our case study, we propose incorporating the concept of cura (healing) --which, distinct from saúde (health), emphasizes rituals, medicinal plants, and elements such as water and earth as sources of spiritual and ecological restoration--into public health frameworks.