Description
Book SynopsisPrivatization and the New Medical Pluralism is the first collection of its kind to explore the contemporary terrain of healthcare in Guatemala through reflective ethnography. This volume offers a nuanced portrait of the effects of healthcare privatization for indigenous Maya people, who have historically endured numerous disparities in health and healthcare access. The collection provides an updated understanding of medical pluralism, which concerns not only the tensions and exchanges between ethnomedicine and biomedicine that have historically shaped Maya people's experiences of health, but also the multiple competing biomedical institutions that have emerged in a highly privatized, market-driven environment of care. The contributors examine the macro-structural and micro-level implications of the proliferation of non-governmental organizations, private fee-for-service clinics, and new pharmaceuticals against the backdrop of a deteriorating public health system. In this environment, h
Trade ReviewThe long-term effects of neoliberal agendas to privatize global health are still being revealed, particularly in developing countries still recovering from devastating policies of structural adjustment. This collection offers stunning and often harrowing ethnographic details about these effects in Guatemala. Without romanticizing the nation's past or glossing over its persistent national challenges, the authors here reveal how the blending of public, private, humanitarian and for-profit medical resources today far too often fails patients, marginalizes indigenous healers, and secures profits for the wrong reasons. This should be a model for studies of medical pluralism for the 21st Century -- Vincanne Adams, University of California, San Francisco
This volume offers a nuanced, yet amazingly lucid and hard-hitting critique of the NGOization of health care, even in contexts like Guatemala where the postcolonial state offered little before implantation of neoliberal policies. This “Republic of NGOs” offers a pluralism that nonetheless displaces traditional, indigenous health systems. A must read for scholars and students of medical anthropology, NGOs, and contemporary Central America. -- Mark Schuller, Northern Illinois University
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Introduction Peter Rohloff & Anita Chary Part One: The Public-Private Interface Chapter 1 Strategic Alliances: The Shifting Motivations for NGO Collaboration with Government Programs Jonathan Maupin Chapter 2 “Mi Familia Pobreza”: Conditional Cash Transfers and Maternal-Child Health in Rural Guatemala Shom Dasgupta-Tsinikas and Paul Wise Chapter 3 Forced Motherhood in Guatemala: An Analysis of the Thousand Days Initiative Alejandra Colom Part Two: Commoditizing Care Chapter 4 “This Disease Is for Those Who Can Afford It”: Diabetes in Indigenous Maya Communities David Flood and Peter Rohloff Chapter 5 Capitalizing on Care: Marketplace Quasi-pharmaceuticals in the Guatemalan Health-seeking Landscape Rachel Hall-Clifford Part Three: Navigating Novel Resources Chapter 6 Engaging Mental Healthcare in a Disengaged System Carla Pezzia Chapter 7 Hysterectomies and Healer Shopping: Cervical Cancer and Therapeutic Anarchy in Guatemala Anita Chary Chapter 8 Leveraging Resources in Contemporary Maya Midwifery Nora King, Anita Chary, and Peter Rohloff Chapter 9 Conclusion: A Bad Conscience of Justice! Peter Benson References Contributors Index
