Ethnic Andean Concepts of Health and Illness in the Post-Colombian World and Its Relevance Today
نویسندگان
چکیده
‘MEDICINE’ is a new project funded under the EC Horizon 2020 Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions, to determine concepts of health and healing from a culturally specific indigenous context, using a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The study will generate new theoretical and methodological approaches to model how peoples survive and adapt their traditional belief systems in a context of alien cultural impacts. In the immediate wake of the conquest of Peru by invading Spanish armies and ideology, native Andeans responded by forming the Taki Onkoy millenarian movement, which rejected European philosophical and ontological teachings, claiming “you make us sick”. The study explores how people’s experience of their world and their health beliefs within it, is fundamentally shaped by their inherent beliefs about the nature of being and identity in relation to the wider cosmos. Cultural and health belief systems and related rituals or behaviors sustain a people’s sense of identity, wellbeing and integrity. In the event of dislocation and persecution these may change into devolved forms, which eventually inter-relate with ‘modern’ biomedical systems of health in as yet unidentified ways. The development of new conceptual frameworks that model this process will greatly expand our understanding of how people survive and adapt in response to cultural trauma. It will also demonstrate the continuing role, relevance and use of TM in present-day indigenous communities. Studies will first be made of relevant pre-Colombian material culture, and then of early colonial period ethnohistorical texts which document the health beliefs and ritual practices still employed by indigenous Andean societies at the advent of the 17th century Jesuit campaigns of persecution ‘Extirpación de las Idolatrías’. Core beliefs drawn from these baseline studies will then be used to construct a questionnaire about current health beliefs and practices to be taken into the study population of indigenous Quechua peoples in the northern Andean region of Ecuador. Their current systems of knowledge and medicine have evolved within complex historical contexts of both the conquest by invading Inca armies in the late 15th century, followed a generation later by Spain, into new forms. A new model will be developed of contemporary Andean concepts of health, illness and healing demonstrating the way these have changed through time. With this, a ‘policy tool’ will be constructed as a bridhging facility into contemporary global scenarios relevant to other Indigenous, First Nations, and migrant peoples to provide a means through which their traditional health beliefs and current needs may be more appropriately understood and met. This paper presents findings from the first analytical phases of the work based upon the study of the literature and the archaeological records. The study offers a novel perspective and methods in the development policies sensitive to indigenous and minority people’s health needs. Keywords—Andean ethnomedicine, andean health beliefs, health beliefs models, traditional medicine. E. J. Currie is with the Department of Archaeology, University of York, UK (corresponding author, e-mail [email protected]). F. Ortega P. is with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador.
منابع مشابه
نقش فرهنگ در آسیب شناسی روانی و رواندرمانی: تلویحاتی برای ارتقاء صلاحیت فرهنگی روان درمانگران
Abstract Culture is defined of knowledge systems, concepts, rules and activities that is learned and passed down from generation to generation that influence to clinical symptoms show, etiology, expect of treatment, coping with illness and the process of psychotherapy.Culture at different levels affect of psychotherapy. Including motivation for treatment, the problems, treatment goals, thera...
متن کاملFactors Associated with Enrolment of Households in Nepal’s National Health Insurance Program
Background Nepal has made remarkable efforts towards social health protection over the past several years. In 2016, the Government of Nepal introduced a National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) with an aim to ensure equitable and universal access to healthcare by all Nepalese citizens. Following the first year of operation, the scheme has covered 5 percent of its target population. There ...
متن کاملConstraints to Applying Systems Thinking Concepts in Health Systems: A Regional Perspective from Surveying Stakeholders in Eastern Mediterranean Countries
Background Systems Thinking (ST) has recently been promoted as an important approach to health systems strengthening. However, ST is not common practice, particularly in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). This paper seeks to explore the barriers that may hinder its application in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) and possible strategies to mitigate them. Methods A survey consistin...
متن کاملمفهوم علیت در پارادایمهای پزشکی
In this article, we aim to discuss one of the essential concepts of medicine. As a rule, such studies attempt to clarify the philosophical principals of medicine, whereby the act of medic can be regulated based on his clear perceptions of the principles of his knowledge. In this article, we will evaluate the concept of causation in medicine from a philosophical point of view and through histor...
متن کاملDearborn-Detroit Michigan: Ethnography of Faith and the U.S. Domestic and Foreign Policy Axis
The relationship between ethnic and faith communities in the United States and domestic forces relating to a converging and diverging social contract on the one hand, and US foreign, security and military policies in national, regional and global contexts on the other hand, constitutes the key focus of this paper and the ongoing research upon which it is based. Theories related to American ethn...
متن کامل