Power struggle: Indigenous medicines from the Chiapas Highlands, between two worlds

Abstract

The indigenous medical knowledge of the region formerly known as the Chiapas Highlands, now the Tzeltal-Tzotzil region, has been rendered invisible by official scientific-hegemonic medicine and made visible again based on obvious economic advantages that have nothing to do with the recognition of these peoples' fundamental rights, but rather with the Mexican government's search for answers to the conditions expressed in the profound economic, political, and social crisis of the last thirty years.

This work aims to show and reflect on the impact and social dynamics of the health control business, in each of its forms and variations, on the inhabitants, primarily indigenous people, of this region. It aims to demonstrate that the current crisis is temporary, but, above all, it is the manifestation of something much deeper: the economic, cultural, and structural control of indigenous medical knowledge. For this reason, the article explores how sociocultural changes affect social representations of health, illness, and medical care, especially in indigenous communities. Highlighting how some people are abandoning traditional practices but still maintain ancestral beliefs, facing the prevailing challenges of globalization, poverty, and the influence of official, hegemonic, capitalist, and modern medicine.