Abstract

SANTISTEBAN, Kaia. “Which Spaces Should Be Opened?” Communication Scenarios between Mapuche Patients and Biomedical Areas in Northern Patagonia. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2024, n.54, pp.61-86.  Epub Feb 19, 2024. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda54.2024.03.

This work analyzes the tensions that arise when individuals from the Mapuche Tehuelche people, located in northern Patagonia, Argentina, navigate through biomedical spaces where indigenous belongings, concepts, knowledge, and practices of Mapuche medicine and biomedicine come into play. These itineraries unveil situations of inequality, racism, discrimination, and epistemological and ontological tensions when Mapuche medicine is questioned or silenced by biomedicine. For years, Mapuche Tehuelche organizations, communities, and members have been undertaking collective actions to defend and demand that the State recognize lawen (Mapuche medicine) in health-disease care processes. For this work, I focus on some experiences that occurred during 2022 in the town of San Carlos de Bariloche (Río Negro, Argentina), where I observed certain recurring tensions among those navigating diverse paths in Mapuche medicine and in spaces such as hospitals or primary health care centers. This article is part of a broader anthropological research in which I use a qualitative methodology with an ethnographic and narrative approach based on in-depth interviews, participant observations, and informal conversations conducted with activists, women from Mapuche communities, and health professionals who identify themselves as part of the network of relationships around health. Focusing on these stories and experiences, this study concludes that the lawen has not yet found a receptive audience in certain biomedical spaces based on the frameworks it proposes. The commitment is to continue reflecting on future challenges to co-produce knowledge and health spaces with critical reflection that values the demands of the Mapuche Tehuelche people.

Keywords : Biomedicine health; interculturality; Mapuche medicine; Mapuche Tehuelche people; memories.

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