Towards a critical approach to intercultural healthcare: a case study of indigenous women in the Bolivian Amazon

AIZENBERG, L.

Kelowna

Congreso; 42st CONGRESS OF THE CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES; 2012

The University of British Columbia

It explores healthcare programs that incorporate the intercultural perspective. It concentrates on the case of the Bolivian intercultural program "EXTENSA" and analyzes how this program is successful at increasing trust in the suppliers of "modern or Western" healthcare and thus improving the reproductive healthcare of the indigenous women. The conventional interpretation of intercultural health programs view their impact as the result of the program´s transformation of the behaviors of the population as well as the result of the program to "overcome" the "cultural barrier" between the users and health providers. Instead, through a qualitative analysis, this study reveals that intercultural healthcare programs work as part of specific processes where women not only feel that they can overcome the cultural barrier but the multiple barriers experimented with the public health care system.