Abstract

GARZON CHIRIVI, Omar Alberto. Approach to a State of the Art of Traditional and Popular Medicinal Practices in Hispano-American. Folios [online]. 2015, n.41, pp.157-168. ISSN 0123-4870.

This article presents a state of the art of academic production concerning traditional and popular medicine in Latin America. It analyzes the relation between studies on chamanismo (the art of medicine men) in indigenous communities in some Spanish-speaking countries (Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Spain) and studies on curanderismo (the art of healers) in urban contexts and evidences recurring elements of a magical, religious and medical kind in their therapeutic practices. Likewise, it shows the changes in the understanding of these systems of treatment and assistance to health and sickness, their permanence and incidence on collective practices associated to spirituality, as well as the construction of alternatives of individual and social health and the interdisciplinary character of the existing research studies. This article, too, proposes the existence of an analytical vacuum regarding gender, class and ethnic group in the studies on traditional and popular medicine.

Keywords : Traditional Medicine; Folk Medicine; State of the Art; Quackery; Witch Doctor.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )