Help Brazilian native peoples fight the INFODEMIC
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Help fight the COVID-19 Infodemic in Brazil’s indigenous communities
Brazil ranks second in the world for COVID-19 cases and thousands of people are dying every day. Brazilian indigenous communities are most severely affected, their very existence is threatened. These communities are under attack not just from COVID, but also from viral misinformation. This is the infodemic – the lethal combination of the pandemic and false information about it, spread via social media.
Misinformation and rumours coming into the communities from outside foster resistance to medical guidelines such as quarantine, isolation, hand-washing, and the use of personal protective equipment. This situation directly endangers lives and reinforces existing negative stereotypes of indigenous people.
Our team of experts comprising native speaker researchers Dr Joaquim Kaxinawa, Dr Wary Kamaiurá Sabino and Tambura Amondawa (from the Huni Kuĩ, Awetý and Amondawa communities) and anthropological linguist Dr Vera da Silva Sinha, backed by an international advisory group, will develop ways and means to fight back against the infodemic. Our goal is to help community leaders and teachers combat the infodemic by communicating reliable, life-saving information in the languages of the communities. To do this, we will create a communication tool that can be used both online and face-to-face.
We need your help to cover basic costs involved in fighting this terrible infodemic (local transport, food, publicity material, and communication tools). No money will be paid to participants or to the research team. Every little bit helps, so please give as much as you can and encourage your families, your friends and neighbours to support this urgent fight against the deadly infodemic in communities whose languages and cultures are already endangered.
Thank you for your support!
*****************************************************
More information:
The project objectives are:
1) To identify and analyse the misconceptions and rumours about COVID-19 that are circulating in the villages, with a focus on misinformation about the origins, transmission and treatment of COVID-19.
2) To identify and analyse conflicts of communication within and between government sources, health care professionals working in the villages and other agencies (FUNAI, CASAI).
3) To develop ways to communicate reliable and life-saving information in the context of indigenous cultures and indigenous norms and patterns of communication.
4) To create and circulate a communication toolkit that gives specific details about COVID-19 and other diseases in a culturally and linguistically appropriate form.
The objectives will be achieved in collaboration with indigenous native speaker researchers and the team of researchers named below. We hope the result of this research will be disseminated to neighbouring communities to build capacity for COVID-19 infodemic resistance among multiple indigenous groups.
How we will do the research
We will be interviewing community members about how they perceive, understand and communicate about the pandemic and about the disease processes. Additionally, we will conduct online interviews with selected participants who have key roles in health, education and communication. Infodemic and memes circulating widely online in Brazil, in particular, those that participants refer to during interviews or spontaneously, will be collected, inventorized and analyzed, together with other information such as leaflets that are circulating in the villages and information transmitted by government agencies, NGOs and evangelical churches. A survey will also be collected that will focus on clarifying indigenous peoples’ understanding of COVID-19 and their perceptions of risks and harms.
Native Researchers– three native speaker researchers who already agreed to participate in this research will provide the language and culture consultancy, carry out interviews in their villages and assist with the administration of the survey. They are key members of this project.
How this research will help the communities
We will produce a Communication Toolkit based on the data collected in different formats: bilingual posters, illustrated flyers and audio-visual clips culturally and linguistically adapted for each community. We will film video-clips developing the five points below to combat disinformation:
Be critical when you find information on social media;
Delete false information in your online networks;
Check the information before sharing it;
Report and alert false information in the community;
Shout out loud to everyone what is reliable information.
Our Research Team:
Dr Vera da Silva Sinha – anthropologist, linguist and social scientist, I have been working with Awetý, Huni Kuin and Amondawa for many years, and now they require my skills and network to help them to get through this pandemic. We need help now to implement this project!
Dr Joaquim Kaxinawa, Dr Wary Kamaiurá Sabino and Tambura Amondawa are the native speaker Researchers in the indigenous communities. Their roles in implementing the research in their respective community are pivotal for the development and implementation of this project.
Advisory Board
Professor Peter Austin - Will contribute through his world-leading expertise in the documentation of endangered languages and his current compilation of information on COVID-19 research in different language communities.
Professor Andrea Bender – (anthropologist and psychologist) will provide general advice on culture and language analysis.
Professor Ana Suelly Cabral – Is the leading Brazilian expert in documenting and describing indigenous languages. She will help with networking with other indigenous communities in Brazil and also give support to implement the survey through her leadership of the Laboratory of Indigenous Languages and Literature at the University of Brasilia.
Dr Fernanda Cavalcanti – Her expertise in discourse analysis, metaphor and gender in Brazilian Portuguese and indigenous variants of Brazilian Portuguese will enable her to help with the data analysis and the development of the toolkit.
Dr Zenith Delabrida – will provide advice on the design of the survey and on topics in environmental psychology and psychology of informational credibility.
Professor Luna Filipovic – as a forensic psycholinguist she will contribute to the data analyses and formulation of advice to be delivered and to the devising of engagement strategies
Dr Alberto Hijazo-Gascón – His expertise in applied linguistics will enable him to help with data analysis and the development of the toolkit
Professor Heliana Mello - Her expertise in corpus linguistic and computational data processing will contribute to the design of the communication toolkit.
Professor Andreas Mussolf is an internationally leading researcher in discourse metaphor who will provide advice in the development of the thematic analysis.
Professor Wany Sampaio – As a leading expert in field linguistics of Tupian languages she will help with the implementation of the project in Amondawa and network with other communities in Rondônia.
Professor Chris Sinha - His expertise in research in language, cognition and culture will enable him to provide general advice on data collection and analyses and assist in the development of the toolkit.
Dr Anna Waldstein - will provide general advice on topics in medical anthropology.
Dr Sara Vilar Lluch – will help with the design of questionnaire and toolkit
Brazil ranks second in the world for COVID-19 cases and thousands of people are dying every day. Brazilian indigenous communities are most severely affected, their very existence is threatened. These communities are under attack not just from COVID, but also from viral misinformation. This is the infodemic – the lethal combination of the pandemic and false information about it, spread via social media.
Misinformation and rumours coming into the communities from outside foster resistance to medical guidelines such as quarantine, isolation, hand-washing, and the use of personal protective equipment. This situation directly endangers lives and reinforces existing negative stereotypes of indigenous people.
Our team of experts comprising native speaker researchers Dr Joaquim Kaxinawa, Dr Wary Kamaiurá Sabino and Tambura Amondawa (from the Huni Kuĩ, Awetý and Amondawa communities) and anthropological linguist Dr Vera da Silva Sinha, backed by an international advisory group, will develop ways and means to fight back against the infodemic. Our goal is to help community leaders and teachers combat the infodemic by communicating reliable, life-saving information in the languages of the communities. To do this, we will create a communication tool that can be used both online and face-to-face.
We need your help to cover basic costs involved in fighting this terrible infodemic (local transport, food, publicity material, and communication tools). No money will be paid to participants or to the research team. Every little bit helps, so please give as much as you can and encourage your families, your friends and neighbours to support this urgent fight against the deadly infodemic in communities whose languages and cultures are already endangered.
Thank you for your support!
*****************************************************
More information:
The project objectives are:
1) To identify and analyse the misconceptions and rumours about COVID-19 that are circulating in the villages, with a focus on misinformation about the origins, transmission and treatment of COVID-19.
2) To identify and analyse conflicts of communication within and between government sources, health care professionals working in the villages and other agencies (FUNAI, CASAI).
3) To develop ways to communicate reliable and life-saving information in the context of indigenous cultures and indigenous norms and patterns of communication.
4) To create and circulate a communication toolkit that gives specific details about COVID-19 and other diseases in a culturally and linguistically appropriate form.
The objectives will be achieved in collaboration with indigenous native speaker researchers and the team of researchers named below. We hope the result of this research will be disseminated to neighbouring communities to build capacity for COVID-19 infodemic resistance among multiple indigenous groups.
How we will do the research
We will be interviewing community members about how they perceive, understand and communicate about the pandemic and about the disease processes. Additionally, we will conduct online interviews with selected participants who have key roles in health, education and communication. Infodemic and memes circulating widely online in Brazil, in particular, those that participants refer to during interviews or spontaneously, will be collected, inventorized and analyzed, together with other information such as leaflets that are circulating in the villages and information transmitted by government agencies, NGOs and evangelical churches. A survey will also be collected that will focus on clarifying indigenous peoples’ understanding of COVID-19 and their perceptions of risks and harms.
Native Researchers– three native speaker researchers who already agreed to participate in this research will provide the language and culture consultancy, carry out interviews in their villages and assist with the administration of the survey. They are key members of this project.
How this research will help the communities
We will produce a Communication Toolkit based on the data collected in different formats: bilingual posters, illustrated flyers and audio-visual clips culturally and linguistically adapted for each community. We will film video-clips developing the five points below to combat disinformation:
Be critical when you find information on social media;
Delete false information in your online networks;
Check the information before sharing it;
Report and alert false information in the community;
Shout out loud to everyone what is reliable information.
Our Research Team:
Dr Vera da Silva Sinha – anthropologist, linguist and social scientist, I have been working with Awetý, Huni Kuin and Amondawa for many years, and now they require my skills and network to help them to get through this pandemic. We need help now to implement this project!
Dr Joaquim Kaxinawa, Dr Wary Kamaiurá Sabino and Tambura Amondawa are the native speaker Researchers in the indigenous communities. Their roles in implementing the research in their respective community are pivotal for the development and implementation of this project.
Advisory Board
Professor Peter Austin - Will contribute through his world-leading expertise in the documentation of endangered languages and his current compilation of information on COVID-19 research in different language communities.
Professor Andrea Bender – (anthropologist and psychologist) will provide general advice on culture and language analysis.
Professor Ana Suelly Cabral – Is the leading Brazilian expert in documenting and describing indigenous languages. She will help with networking with other indigenous communities in Brazil and also give support to implement the survey through her leadership of the Laboratory of Indigenous Languages and Literature at the University of Brasilia.
Dr Fernanda Cavalcanti – Her expertise in discourse analysis, metaphor and gender in Brazilian Portuguese and indigenous variants of Brazilian Portuguese will enable her to help with the data analysis and the development of the toolkit.
Dr Zenith Delabrida – will provide advice on the design of the survey and on topics in environmental psychology and psychology of informational credibility.
Professor Luna Filipovic – as a forensic psycholinguist she will contribute to the data analyses and formulation of advice to be delivered and to the devising of engagement strategies
Dr Alberto Hijazo-Gascón – His expertise in applied linguistics will enable him to help with data analysis and the development of the toolkit
Professor Heliana Mello - Her expertise in corpus linguistic and computational data processing will contribute to the design of the communication toolkit.
Professor Andreas Mussolf is an internationally leading researcher in discourse metaphor who will provide advice in the development of the thematic analysis.
Professor Wany Sampaio – As a leading expert in field linguistics of Tupian languages she will help with the implementation of the project in Amondawa and network with other communities in Rondônia.
Professor Chris Sinha - His expertise in research in language, cognition and culture will enable him to provide general advice on data collection and analyses and assist in the development of the toolkit.
Dr Anna Waldstein - will provide general advice on topics in medical anthropology.
Dr Sara Vilar Lluch – will help with the design of questionnaire and toolkit
Organizer
Vera Sinha
Organizer
England