Abstract

MONTESI, Laura. Stereotyped representations of ethnicity in a Oaxacan rural hospital: barriers to intercultural health. Alteridades [online]. 2023, vol.33, n.65, pp.111-122.  Epub Nov 24, 2023. ISSN 2448-850X.  https://doi.org/10.24275/uam/izt/dcsh/alteridades/2023v33n65/montesi.

This article explores the knowledge that the personnel of a rural hospital in Oaxaca has of intercultural health and the ways in which they represent ethnicity. Based on semi-structured interviews with ten workers who interacted with indigenous language speaker patients, the article shows that the staff appreciated intercultural health but lacked a solid training in this area. Their representations of ethnicity emphasized negative cultural traits related to stereotypical ideas of what “being indigenous” means. Due to methodological limitations, the healthcare personnel’s practices towards their beneficiaries could not be observed so there are no findings on how representations may have influenced their conduct. The value of this investigation lies in its documentation of the contradictions and hardships of applying principles of interculturality in the health sector and the unveiling of cultural barriers which hinder positive interculturality as evidenced by the recurrent representations of indigenous health as defective and of indigenous people as ignorant, vulnerable, or stubborn.

Keywords : social representations; indigenous health; health personnel; health systems; interculturality.

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