MEDICINE · MEDICINE. Indigenous concepts of health and healing in Andean populations: understanding the relevance of traditional MEDICINE in a changing world.
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-11-01 → 2019-10-31
- EU contribution
- €217,708
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
MEDICINE. Indigenous concepts of health and healing in Andean populations: understanding the relevance of traditional MEDICINE in a changing world.
What can the archaeological and ethnohistorical records tell us about the way people adapt their health beliefs and attitudes to illness in the face of war, dislocation and persecution? ‘MEDICINE’ is a new project funded under the EC Horizon 2020 Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions, to determine concepts of health and healing from a culturally specific indigenous context, using a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The study will generate new theoretical and methodological approaches to model how peoples survive and adapt their traditional belief systems in a context of alien cultural impacts. New conceptual models of Andean understandings of health, illness and healing, and the ways these have adapted and changed through time, will be used to develop ‘bridging’ models transferable to contemporary global policy scenarios relevant to marginalised and migrant peoples and provide a means through which their traditional health beliefs and current needs may be more appropriately understood and met. The study offers a novel perspective and methods in the development policies sensitive to indigenous and minority people’s health needs.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In the context of a complex global agenda in traditional and complementary medicine, indigenous concepts of health and healing are less well documented and understood. MEDICINE will examine concepts of health and healing from an indigenous and culturally specific context, taking a unique time-depth perspective and with a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. MEDICINE offers a novel perspective and methods in the development policies sensitive to indigenous and minority people’s social, economic and health needs and, too, on developing culturally sensitive approaches to the conservation of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’. MEDICINE will also develop novel methodological and theoretical approaches to model how peoples survive and adapt their traditional belief systems in a context of alien cultural impacts. The study population are indigenous Quichua peoples in the northern Andean region of Ecuador, a country where the ER has considerable experience. Models of their understanding of health, illness and healing, and the way these have adapted and changed through time will be used to develop a ‘tool’ transferable to contemporary global policy scenarios.MEDICINE will benefit from the ER's unique perspectives from Medicine and Archaeology to explore the impact of traumatic cultural transition on people, the significance of traditional practices as intangible cultural heritage, and the degree to which the longer-term archaeological perspective can help promote understanding in a vital area of contemporary concern. It will enable her to develop further policy relevant skills, a particular output being contributions to policy and practice in the development of culturally sensitive approaches to the health and social needs of migrant and minority peoples from traditional cultural backgrounds.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF YORK · YORK NORTH YORKSHIRECoordinatorUnited Kingdom
- UNIVERSIDAD SAN FRANCISCO DE QUITO · QuitoEcuador
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/705225
- http://www.andeanmedicine.net/
- https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/projects/success-stories/all/medicine-view-andes
Data: CORDIS, © European Union