The Colonization of Belonging

Human Behavior Map: from DNA to Body-Territory

When we think about colonization, we often imagine land occupation, ships, flags, borders, and extraction.

But there is a deeper question:

What happens when a people also loses its original ways of belonging?

Brazil was shaped by an extractive logic. First came wood, gold, sugar, coffee, minerals, bodies, languages, rivers, forests, and futures. Colonization reorganized land, but it also reorganized bodies.

The body that once belonged to clan, river, forest, food cycles, seasonal gatherings, and living territory was gradually pushed into another map: produce to sell, obey to survive, believe to be accepted, compete to exist.

Decolonial Neuroscience proposes that we study this not only as history, but as a living behavioral pattern.

The Human Behavior Map begins with one question:

Who is teaching our bodies how to belong?

From DNA to Living Body

DNA is not a closed destiny. It is a living system interacting with food, sleep, stress, care, violence, movement, school, city, economy, and territory.

A child does not receive only genes.

A child receives a world.

Voices, smells, rhythms, screens, streets, trees, fear, care, food, silence, noise, affection, and absence all participate in development.

So the Human Behavior Map does not begin only with visible behavior. It begins with the mechanisms by which environment becomes body, and body becomes attention, emotion, memory, action, and belonging.

Colonization as Reprogramming of Belonging

Colonization acted not only through physical force. It also acted through spirituality, calendar, economy, education, language, and imagination.

Real cycles of nature — solstices, seasons, rains, harvests, rivers, and collective gatherings — were gradually reinterpreted by religious, economic, political, and algorithmic systems.

The human body still responds to light, darkness, sleep, food, climate, movement, territory, and group presence.

The decolonial question is not against faith.

It is deeper:

Do our collective celebrations bring bodies closer to shared life, or do they organize attention around obedience, identity battles, followers, and votes?

Yãy hã mĩy: Learning by Imitating to Transcend Being

In childhood, this becomes decisive.

The Maxakali concept Yãy hã mĩy can be extended here as:

imitating-being in order to transcend-being.

A child first observes.

Then imitates.

Then incorporates.

Then creates.

That is why every country must ask:

Who is the child imitating?

A grandmother, a father, a teacher, a forest, a dance, an animal, a screen, an influencer, an algorithm, or a political war?

Childhood is the first strategic territory of a nation.

Protecting childhood is protecting future sovereignty.

APUS, Tekoha and Body-Territory

No brain lives outside the world.

Every person lives inside an APUS: an extended proprioceptive field where body, home, street, school, city, forest, mountain, river, and memory become a felt territory.

Tekoha reminds us that the place where life happens is not just an address. It is a condition of existence.

When territory is polluted, unsafe, noisy, isolated, and economically unstable, the body learns vigilance.

When territory offers movement, nature, culture, safety, dignity, and shared time, the body receives better conditions to learn, create, and cooperate.

The Human Behavior Map asks:

How does territory become body, and how does body become behavior?

Jiwasa: The Self That Flourishes in the We

Human beings do not regulate themselves alone.

We regulate attention, emotion, courage, and meaning with other people.

A classroom can calm or agitate.

A teacher can open or close possibilities.

A group can create creativity or obedience.

A community can produce care or fear.

The concept of Jiwasa helps us understand this collective level.

When true Jiwasa exists, the group does not need to function through fear, money, or enemies. People regulate each other through belonging, shared tasks, trust, and the natural alternation of leaders.

This is central for Brazil in 2026.

Brazil can move from the capture of belonging through polarization toward public policies that strengthen bodies, territories, and living collectives.

DREX Citizen, Carbon Credits and the Metabolism of the State

If the body needs energy to live, the social body also needs energy.

When money is born mainly as debt, interest, scarcity, and financial intermediation, citizens learn economic obedience.

When part of public circulation can emerge through DREX Citizen, carbon credits, local PIX circulation, and the value of living territory, the economy starts to work more like social metabolism.

A standing forest stops being seen as “empty land.”

A local citizen stops being only a consumer or voter.

The Body-Territory becomes the minimum unit of sovereignty.

A mature country does not need fear to produce belonging.

It can produce belonging through life, care, science, economic circulation, protected territory, and cooperation.

Scientific References and Experimental Pathways

1. Zhao et al. (2024) — fNIRS hyperscanning and interpersonal neural synchronization
This systematic review and meta-analysis shows that interpersonal neural synchronization can be studied with fNIRS hyperscanning during social interactions. It supports Jiwasa as a measurable collective phenomenon. (ScienceDirect)
Experimental question: do groups with stronger belonging show higher prefrontal synchronization during cooperation?
Experiment: fNIRS hyperscanning with dyads or small groups solving problems before and after a belonging-based intervention.

2. Candia-Rivera et al. (2024) — interoception, network physiology and bodily self-awareness
This review connects interoceptive signals with bodily self-awareness, supporting the Damasian Mind as a body-based process. (PubMed)
Experimental question: can Body-Territory practices improve interoceptive awareness and cortical regulation?
Experiment: EEG + fNIRS + HRV + breathing before and after territorial walking, dance, collective movement, or secular community ritual.

3. Zhang et al. (2025) — human allostatic-interoceptive system using 7T fMRI
This study maps cortical and subcortical networks involved in allostasis and interoception, linking body energy regulation with brain function. (Nature)
Experimental question: does economic insecurity increase prefrontal vigilance and autonomic stress?
Experiment: prefrontal fNIRS + GSR/HRV during decision-making tasks involving scarcity, safety, cooperation, and future planning.

4. Ensink et al. (2024) — DNA methylation profiles in youth PTSD treatment response
This study relates salivary DNA methylation profiles to treatment outcomes in young people with PTSD, reinforcing that lived experience can be studied through biological markers. (Nature)
Experimental question: can safe school environments improve emotional regulation markers?
Experiment: longitudinal study with questionnaires, biological markers, EEG/fNIRS emotional tasks, and belonging scales.

5. Borja et al. (Brain 2026) — screen use and internalizing symptoms at 36 months
This Brazilian study found associations between screen-use frequency, content, interactivity, total screen score, and internalizing symptoms in 36-month-old children. Frequency was the most consistent domain.
Connection to this blog: digital territory enters early childhood and can compete with living Yãy hã mĩy.
Experiment: EEG/fNIRS in children during caregiver interaction, physical play, outdoor play, and interactive screen exposure.

6. Rosa et al. (Brain 2026) — proximal relations, belonging and substance-use trajectories
This study, based on Bioecological Development Theory, links family fragility, violence, neglect, peer influence, belonging, and mutual support in people with substance-use disorders.
Connection to this blog: belonging can become either risk or protection, depending on the relational territory.
Experiment: fNIRS + HRV during peer-support tasks, comparing isolation narratives and mutual-care narratives.

7. Neurourbanism and cognition (Brain 2025)
The Brain 2025 material connects screen exposure and digital habits with sleep problems, sedentary lifestyle, attention problems, social isolation, and emotional development.
Connection to this blog: territory is not only physical; digital territory also shapes cognition, attention, and social development.
Experiment: mobile fNIRS + HRV during walking in green areas, gray urban areas, and high-screen exposure contexts.

8. Camargo et al. (Brain 2024) — physical activity and mental-health clusters in Brazilian university students
This multicenter Brazilian study investigated physical activity and clusters of mental disorders in university students, using DSM-5, PHQ-9, GAD-7, PSQI, ASSIST, ASRS and other instruments.
Connection to this blog: movement can be treated as a protective Body-Territory mechanism for mental health.
Experiment: fNIRS hyperscanning before and after collective physical activity, combined with HRV, GSR, breathing, and belonging scales.

9. Brazilian study on ADHD symptoms, anxiety, depression and physical activity (Brain 2024)
In a sample of 1,281 students from seven Brazilian universities, students with ADHD symptoms were more likely to present worse physical activity behaviors and higher depression and anxiety scores.
Connection to this blog: attention, movement, mental health, and university territory form one integrated behavioral system.
Experiment: fNIRS during executive-function tasks before and after structured movement programs on campus.

10. Everyday discrimination and psychosocial vulnerability (Brain 2026)
This Brazilian study connects everyday discrimination with vulnerable, punitive, and less positive schema modes, showing how social stress becomes internalized functioning.
Connection to this blog: colonization of belonging can be studied today as chronic social stress, discrimination, and internalized vulnerability.
Experiment: EEG/fNIRS + HRV during social-evaluation tasks, comparing exclusion, neutral interaction, and belonging-based interaction.

How to Transform This Evidence into Public Policy

If you are running for President of Brazil

Propose a National Human Behavior Map Program connecting universities, schools, SUS, sports, culture, DREX Citizen, and carbon credits to measure and strengthen human development from DNA to Body-Territory.

If you are running for the Senate

Propose a Body-Territory Legal Framework, recognizing each citizen as the minimum unit of protection and development in a secular democratic state, with priority for pregnancy care, childhood, education, mental health, territory, and digital sovereignty.

If you are running for Governor

Create State Human Behavior Map Centers, connecting universities, schools, hospitals, parks, municipalities, and EEG/fNIRS laboratories to transform regional data into public policy.

If you are running for Federal Deputy

Allocate resources to multicenter research on childhood, screens, physical activity, mental health, belonging, DREX Citizen, carbon credits, and human development.

If you are running for State Deputy

Support pilot projects in schools, neighborhoods, traditional communities, and universities to measure how routine, territory, nature, movement, and belonging improve learning and mental health.

Sentences for a Government Plan

A nation prospers when it transforms territory into belonging, and belonging into human development.

Brazil’s future can emerge from every protected Body-Territory, every standing forest valued, and every citizen with minimum economic energy to learn, create, cooperate, and flourish.