Enchoque Cultural

Enchoque Cultural, or "culture shock" refers to the anxiety and feelings--of surprise, disorientation, uncertainty, confusion, etc.--felt when people have to operate within a different and unknown culture such as one may encounter in a foreign country. It grows out of the difficulties in assimilating the new culture, causing difficulty in knowing what is appropriate and what is not. This is often combined with a dislike for or even disgust--moral or aesthetical--with certain aspects of the new or different culture. (Bellini) On one hand it is easy to feel fascinated and interested in the practice of other cultures from the safety of the classroom: when Manuel's wife came in to talk to our class about pregnancy and delivery I had no trouble actively listening and imagining the practices done in Guatemala. However, there were definitely images that she painted that shocked me and made me feel a little queasy. These images of women's health in Guatemala were given in greater detail in this week's reading. For instance, as a female, I cannot fathom participating in the prenatal care that prescribes the tuj (small sweathouse) while being pregnant or lying on "hard-packed dirt, with only a blanket separating her (me) from the floor" to give birth or blamming the poor eye sight of my child on my husband and myself failing to properly bury the placenta from the birth...I can go on and on. Perhaps this queasyness comes from the fact that I am a college student and talking about pregnancy and babies goes completely against the current clock of my life that I am working so hard at to keep on a strict schedule. However, these feelings of uneasyness go deeper and come from the huge contrast that I see between health in general in the United States versus the practices in Guatemala. One huge culture shock. According to Bellini there are actually four stages of culture shock ranging from awe to rejection, isolation to assimilation. As we only have to opportuinty to stay in Guatemala for one month, I will not grasp the full experience of a culture shock. However, there are undeniable differences in the ways in which health is viewed in the US versus in Guatemala. Most post have already touched on them and I think it basically comes down to the different ways in which we see ourselves in nature, our relationship with the land, and our family/community dynamics.

Echoing off of last weeks reading (an perhaps most of the previous readings), again, the biggest theme of this week is transculturation. The transculturation from the early midwives to the introduction to the medicalization of childbirth and the transculturation from a system that has function well for hundreds of years in Santa Catarina to the inescapable influx of Western ideas and products, for example, are broad trangressions that jump of the pages of this weeks readings.