Territorial Amazonian Psychology: Epistemological Foundations for a Psychology Situated in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

This study proposes the epistemological foundations of Territorial Amazonian Psychology as a situated theoretical-practical perspective for understanding subjectivities, experiences of psychological suffering, and collective forms of care produced within Amazonian territorialities. The study is a theoretical-epistemological essay grounded in a qualitative approach and based on a critical and interdisciplinary bibliographic review that articulates contributions from Latin American Community Psychology, Collective Mental Health, Epistemologies of the South, and decolonial studies. The analysis begins with a critique of the universalization of Eurocentric and urban-centered psychological models historically detached from the territorial, racial, cultural, and communal specificities of the Brazilian Amazon. It is argued that the coloniality of knowledge has contributed to the epistemological invisibilization of Amazonian experiences and to the marginalization of communal and ancestral care practices historically developed by Black, quilombola, Indigenous, riverine, and peripheral populations in the region. Within this context, Territorial Amazonian Psychology proposes understanding the Amazon not merely as a geographical space or empirical field of investigation, but as a territory that produces subjectivities, knowledge systems, and analytical categories for interpreting human experience. The study discusses the relationships among territory, coloniality, subjectivity, and psychological suffering, proposing the concept of the territorialization of suffering as a central category for understanding psychosocial inequalities in the Brazilian Amazon. Furthermore, the study recognizes Afro-Amazonian cultural practices, ancestral knowledge systems, and collective technologies of care as important strategies for subjective strengthening, cultural resistance, and the production of collective mental health. It is concluded that Territorial Amazonian Psychology constitutes a critical and situated epistemological possibility committed to valuing Amazonian territorialities, Black and traditional ancestralities, and collective care practices historically rendered invisible by hegemonic paradigms of modern science. The proposal expands the theoretical horizons of Brazilian Psychology by affirming the Amazon as a legitimate territory for the production of psychological knowledge.