Health in the Highlands: Indigenous Healing and Scientific Medicine in Guatemala and Ecuador

In the first half of the 20th century, Ecuador and Guatemala attempted to spread scientific medicine to their populations, combining traditional and new practices. However, both governments wrote off indigenous lifeways and practices with explicit and implicit racism, criminalizing native medical providers and experimenting on indigenous people without their consent. Guatemala's government was dictatorial, treating women and indigenous people as subjects to control and police. Ecuador had a more pluralistic vision of national unity and had better outcomes.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 11 July 2023
Publisher: University of California Press

This intricate history reveals how cultural and political history, misogyny, racism, and racialization all have an impact on public health. The governments of Ecuador and Guatemala worked to promote scientific medicine in their populations in the first half of the twentieth century in an effort to prevent and treat malaria, typhus, and typhoid; to improve infant and maternal health; and to enhance overall health.

David Carey Jr. demonstrates in his book that highland indigenous communities in the two nations frequently adopted a syncretic approach to health, combining traditional and modern practices. At times, both governments promoted or at the very least tolerated such a combination: even what they considered nonscientific care was preferable to none. However, both, particularly Guatemala's, also dismissed indigenous ways of life and practices with both explicit and implicit racism, going so far as to criminalize native medical practitioners and conduct experiments on indigenous people without their permission. Both countries had authoritarian governments, but Guatemala's was outright dictatorial, treating both women and indigenous people as subjects to be controlled and policed. Ecuador, on the other hand, advanced a more pluralistic vision of national unity, resulting in somewhat better outcomes.

Weight: 482g
Dimension: 152 x 231 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520344792