Healing Knowledge and Practices of Peasant Healers: an Approach to Traditional Medicine in Northern Antioquia, Colombia

Abstract

The doctoral research Healing Knowledge and Practices of Peasant Healers: An Approach to Traditional Medicine in Northern Antioquia, Colombia emphasizes the study of several practices and skills from traditional medicine. These practices are understood as historical and cultural elaborations influenced by matters of a symbolic nature. As a result, a comprehensive view of the events and experiences that make a peasant become a healer, and the recognition of the influence of symbolism on the processes of tending to health and illness, becomes significant. During field work, several life sustaining practices have been recognised. In addition, we glimpse distinct initiation pathways followed by eight healers, in the municipalities of San Pedro de los Milagros, Don Matías, Belmira, Santa Rosa de Osos y San José de la Montaña. The methodological component of the research was developed via the reconstruction of life histories through story telling, factual narratives, in-depth interviews and participants’ observations. As a result, we acknowledge that the formation of the healer is not given in a extemporaneous manner, but rather it has to do with a multiplicity of processes and situations of a personal and cultural nature