Modernization and hybridization in the life and traditional practices of San Felipe del Progreso. The case of midwives and their ancestral knowledge

Abstract

The present research aims to understand the sociocultural process faced by the traditional midwives of San Felipe del Progreso, in which structures and practices that are different from each other —such as the traditional and modern health systems— meet and allow the emergence of new interpretations, practices and objects in the care of pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium.

For this, it is necessary to divide the investigation into different sections. At first, the article delves into the concept of modernity and how it is seen in Latin America; in the same way, the way it manifests itself in Mexico is mentioned, understood as the succession of various modernization processes that have arisen in the economic, social, political and cultural spheres. Once the above is understood, it is possible to discuss the concept of the hybrid, taking up the premise that these modernization processes are established in a space that had different ways of looking at and constructing reality, a vision that is reflected in the health / illness / attention.

In a second moment, the phenomenon is observed in a specific community, namely, San Felipe del Progreso, which accounts, from its context, of the encounter between these two ways of looking at the health-disease-care process, which on the one hand are characterized by “more traditional models of care” (configured from the pre-Hispanic tradition), in communication with modernizing processes. Based on this approach, the present investigation takes up, temporarily, events that influence the configuration of these modernizing processes from 1808 to 2016, but the focus is on observing such an encounter (traditional model and modern model) in the present.

In the third section, the category of hybrid is retaken as an analysis tool or explanation resource. From the fragments of the life histories obtained from the midwives, described in the fourth section, it is possible to recognize the processes of communication and “hybrid” practice used by these medical specialists. In the fifth section, the results of the research are presented, emphasizing the hybrid seen from the training and training of midwives, and the knowledge acquired, as well as the materials and support techniques.

We conclude by generating a series of arguments that allow us to argue why the hybrid can be a means of explanation for the encounter between forms (ancestral and modern) of care for pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium, via community midwives.