Overview
- Employs a methodological orientation that can be very enlightening not only for the case it explores in Southern Chile, but also for broader contexts of medical pluralism
- Performs a thorough exploration of how socioeconomics and ethnic identification pre-exist and emerge from, social practices
- Takes a unique approach by putting patients as the main focus and relegating medical practitioners to a secondary role
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About this book
Recognizing the interplay between biomedicine and indigenous medicine among the Mapuche in Southern Chile, this book explores notions of culture and personhood through the bodily experiences and medical choices of patients. Through case studies of patients in the context of medical pluralism, Kristensen argues that medical practices are powerful social symbol indicative of overarching socio-political processes. As certain types of extreme and violent experiences–known as olvidos–lack a framework that allows them to be expressed openly, they therefore surface as symptoms of an illness, often with no apparent organic pathology. In these contexts, indigenous medicine, thanks to its sensitivity to socio-political contexts, provides a space for articulation and management of collective experiences and suffering among patients in Southern Chile.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“The book is a good and timely contribution to the ethnographic study of Mapuche medical practices and medical pluralism in Chile. It will be greatly enjoyed by social scientists working on indigenous issues both in Chile and Latin America, as well as by medical anthropologists working on medical pluralism, therapeutic efficacies, postcolonialism, and indigenous medicine and witchcraft practices within modern nation-states.” (Adelaida Barros Cajdler, Anthropos, Vol. 115 (1), 2020)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Dorthe Brogård Kristensen is Associate Professor of Consumption Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Her current interests include health, food, consumption, technologies and medical pluralism.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Patients, Doctors and Healers
Book Subtitle: Medical Worlds among the Mapuche in Southern Chile
Authors: Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97031-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-97030-1Published: 23 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-97031-8Published: 17 December 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 228
Number of Illustrations: 4 illustrations in colour
Topics: Medical Anthropology, Social Anthropology, Area Studies, Complementary & Alternative Medicine, Spirituality, Phenomenology