Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

Patients, Doctors and Healers

Medical Worlds among the Mapuche in Southern Chile

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Dorthe Brogård Kristensen

    1. University of Southern Denmark, Odense M, Denmark

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • 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

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Illness Stories, Medical Choices and Socio-Political Process

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 1-37

  3. The History, Culture and Politics of Chile

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 39-62

  4. Complex Illnesses and Complementary Cures

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 63-101

  5. Indigenous Disease Categories, Medical Dialogues and Social Positions

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 103-125

  6. Being Mapuche in Modern Chile: Illness Experiences, Medical Choices and Social Positions

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 127-149

  7. Uncanny Memories, Violence and Indigenous Medicine

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 151-169

  8. The Shaman, the Virgin and the Taxation Authorities

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 171-191

  9. Conclusion: The Control of Medicine, the Control of Bodies

    • Dorthe Brogård Kristensen
    Pages 193-204

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 205-228
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

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.

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

  • University of Southern Denmark, Odense M, Denmark

    Dorthe Brogård Kristensen

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

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation