Practices and traditional medical knowledge of the Diaguita people of Catamarca (Argentina) and its relationship with the public health system

Abstract

This article addresses the problems of health and interculturality in indigenous territories. It arises as a result of a research work that aimed to characterize the access to health of the Diaguita communities in the province of Catamarca (Argentina). Based on a qualitative methodological design, we seek to know the meanings that the subjects themselves assign to their experiences. We identify the public health policies present in the territory and the perception that the communities have of their performance, tracing at this point the agreements/conflicts among the population, their practices and traditional knowledge, and the public health services in the territory. As a result, we found that the communities face hard difficulties in accessing public health care, being the ignorance and cultural devaluation of their traditional healing and care practices one of the problems identified. In that sense, it is proposed to reflect on different notions of interculturality, within the framework of processes of indigenous re-existence and of struggle for the recognition of the Diaguita people in the face of the persistent relations of coloniality and subalternization of which they are object as indigenous people.

ARK CAICYT: https://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s16688090/a09qg16h0