Different Systems of Knowledge Found in the Reproductive Health of Ashaninka Women from the Peruvian Amazon

Kujawska, Monika

doi:0137-4079

- ris
- BibTeX
- EndNote
- Csv

Different Systems of Knowledge Found in the Reproductive Health of Ashaninka Women from the Peruvian Amazon Kujawska, Monika

Object structure

Different Systems of Knowledge Found in the Reproductive Health of Ashaninka Women from the Peruvian Amazon

Ethnologia Polona 40 (2019)

Kujawska, Monika

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences

medical pluralism ; resilience ; medicinal plants ; midwifery ; indigenous Amazon

Indigenous Ashaninka people from the Peruvian Amazon operate within their communal reserve and autonomous native communities, where biomedical health posts and biomedical practitioners are present. This article analyses how the two systems of knowledge and practice i.e., indigenous medicine and biomedicine, coexist in the Ashaninka territory and how they are articulated in childbirth, birth control and other aspects of reproductive health. Their medicinal cosmology privileges the medicinal plant use and midwifery. At the same time, these practices are compatible with biomedical thinking. The childbirth techniques widely shared by the Ashaninka women and midwifes do not change substantially after biomedical training. Instead, Ashaninka women complementarily add new practices to their own pre-existing array of contraceptive and labour techniques, without shifting their ontological basis. The Ashaninka seem a resilient society, one which is capable of “absorbing” novel biomedical knowledge, practices and technology into their medical landscape, while remaining within their cultural boundaries and thus preserving their specific features.

Århem K. 1996. The Cosmic Food Web. Human-nature Relatedness in the Northwest Amazon. In P. Descola and G. Pálsson (eds.), Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspective. London, 185–204.
Baer H. B. 2003. Contribution to a Critical Analysis of Medical Pluralism: an Examination of the Work of Libbet Crandon-Malamud. In J. Koss-Chioino, T. Leathermand and C. Greenway (eds.), Medical Pluralism in the Andes. London, 42–60.
Belaunde L. E. 1997. ‘Looking after your woman’: Contraception amongst the Airopai (Secoya) of Western Amazonia. Anthropology & Medicine 4, 131–144.
Caruso E. 2011. Co-management Redux: Anti-politics and Transformation in the Ashaninka Communal Reserve, Peru. International Journal of Heritage Studies 17, 608–628.
Cayón L. 2013. Pienso luego creo. La teoría makuna del mundo. Bogotá.
Crandon-Malamud L. 1991. From the Fat of our Souls: Social Change, Political Process, and Medical Pluralism in Bolivia. Berkeley.
De Burgos H. 2014. Contemporary Transformations of Medicine and Ethnic Identity. Anthropologica 56 (2), 399–413.
Descola P. 1996. Constructing Natures. Symbolic Ecology and Social Practice. In P. Descola and G. Pálsson (eds.), Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspective. London and New York, 83–102.
Descola P. 2013. Beyond Nature and Culture. Chicago.
Freed W. J., Gillin J. C., Wyatt R. J. 1979. Anticonvulsant Properties of Betaine. Epilepsia 20, 209–213.
Girardi C., Fabre N., Paloque L., Pramundita Ramadani A., Benoit-Vical F., González-Aspejo G., Haddad M., Rengifo E., Jullian V. 2015. Evaluation of Antiplasmodial and Antileishmanial Activities of Herbal Medicine Pseudelephantopus spiralis (Less.) Cronquist and Isolated Hirsutinolide-type Sesquiterpenoids. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 170, 167–174.
Gold C. L. and Clapp A. 2011. Negotiating Health and Identity: Lay Healing, Medicinal Plants, and Indigenous Healthscapes in Highland Peru. Latin American Research Review 46 (3), 93–111.
Heckenberger M. 2005. The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, AD 1000–2000. New York.
Heckler S. L. 2007. Herbalism, Home Gardens and Hybridization. Wõthïhã Medicine and Cultural Change. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 21, 41–63.
Hern W. M. 1994. Alta fecundidad en una comunidad nativa de la Amazonia Peruana. Amazonía Peruana 12, 125–142.
Holling C. S. 2001. Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems. Ecosystems 4, 390–405.
Izquierdo C. When “Health” Is Not Enough: Societal, Individual and Biomedical Assessments of Well-being among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon. Social Science & Medicine 61, 767–783.
Johannessen H. and Lázár I. (eds.) 2006. Multiple Medical Realities. Patients and Healers in Biomedical, Alternative and Traditional Medicine. New York.
Johnson A. 2003. Families of the Forest: the Matsigenka Indians of the Peruvian Amazon. Berkeley.
Keck M. and Sakdapolrak P. 2013. What is Social Resilience? Lessons Learned and Ways Forward. Erdkunde 67, 5–19.
Killick E . 2009. Creating Community. Land Titling, Education and Settlement Formation among the Ashéninka of Peruvian Amazonia. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 13, 22–47.
Leipert B. D. and Reuter L. 2005. Developing Resilience: How Women Maintain their Health in Northern Geographically Isolated Settings. Qualitative Health Research 15, 49–65.
Lenaert s M. 2006. Substances, Relationships and the Omnipresence of the Body: An Overview of Ashéninka Ethnomedicine (Western Amazonia). Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2: 49.
Macrae W. D. and Towers G. H. N. 1984. Justicia pectoralis: The Study of the Basis for its Use as a Hallucinogenic Snuff Ingredient. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 12, 93–111.
Maxwell N. 1972. Actitudes de cuatro tribus de la selva peruana respecto a plantas empleadas como anticonceptivos por vía oral. Historia, etnohistoria y etnología de la selva sudamericana. Actasy Memorias del XXXIX Congreso Internacional de Americanistas. Lima, 100–107.
Montenegro R. A. and Stephens C. 2006. Indigenous Health in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Lancet 367, 1859–1869.
Obrist B., Mayumana I., Kessy F. 2010. Livelihood, Malaria and Resilience: a Case Study in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. Progress in Development Studies 10, 325–343.
Plowman T. C., Leuchtmann A., Blaney C., Clay K. 1990. Significance of the Fungus Balansia cyperi Infecting Medicinal Species of Cyperus (Cyperaceae) from Amazonia. Economic Botany 44 (4), 452–462.
Rival L. M. 1998. Androgynous Parents and Guest Children: the Huaorani Couvade. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (4), 619–642.
Rival L. M. 2002. Trekking Through History. The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador. New York.
Sahlins M. 1995. Historical Metaphor and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of Sandwich Islands. ASAO Special Publication, Ann Arbor.
Sesia P. M. 1996. ‘Women Come Here on Their own when They Need to’: Parental Care, Authoritative Knowledge, and Maternal Health in Oaxaca. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 10, 121–140.
Shepard Jr. G. H. 1998. Psychoactive Plants and Ethnopsychiatric Medicines of the Matsigenka. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30, 321–332.
Varese S. 2006. La sal de los cerros. Lima.
Viveirosde Castro E. 1998. Cosmological Deixes and Amerindian Perspectivism. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3), 469–488.
Zank S., Araujode L. G., Hanazaki N. 2019. Resilience and Adaptability of Traditional Healthcare System: A Case Study of Communities in Two Regions of Brazil. Ecology and Society (online first/without pagination).