Sea people's health: lighthouses for the Family Health Strategy in fishing communities in Northeast Brazil

Sea people are culturally differentiated by their way of life intertwined with sea fishing and their social and symbolic production. In northeastern Brazil, these people have been changing their living conditions. The Family Health Strategy (ESF) should strengthen links with different cultures to meet its basic principles. We aimed to reflect on the challenges of the ESF in the context of sea people. We conducted ethnographic research in the community of Redonda, Icapui, State of Ceara, using dense descriptions constructed through the narratives of small-scale fishers and their families. We analyzed from the theoretical approach of studies in traditional communities. The results are shown in five themes: 1) The family has an extended dimension in communities established with relatives; 2) Fishing life temporalities govern the common acts of the land-sea dyad; 3) The shifts between being "native" and "outsider" create border areas that dialogue with the rituals of belonging; 4) Sea territorialization and the knowledge of experience; 5) The ESF in the arenas of struggles for environmental justice. Here, the production of health is reaffirmed as the production of sea people's life.