Jongo and Mental Health: speech as a cultural expression without racial boundaries

Abstract

The idea for writing this article came from the course PSC6064-1 Mental Health and Racism: Interventional Practices in the Field of Psychology and Psychoanalysis, taught simultaneously in nine universities in the online modality promoted by ANPSINEP - National Articulation of Black Psychologists and Researchers, with weekly synchronous classes, in a collective project to form networks on this subject. During the classes, a number of subjects were presented and the one that interested me the most was the topic that made it possible to open up a space for black students in universities, while at the same time embracing welcome, socialization, culture, creativity, well-being and mental health: Jongo. It is a form of Afro-Brazilian expression that integrates drum percussion, collective dance with a lot of rhythm and joy in its verses and movements. It is practiced in the urban peripheries and in some rural communities in southeastern Brazil. Based on this collective dance, we will promote a reflection in the light of psychoanalytic theory on the benefits of bodily expression and singing, in a space of speeches, cultural trajectories and everyday experiences that can contribute to cultural transmission in a space of exchange between knowledge of immaterial knowledge.