Institutionalizing Mal de Ojo: Implementing Campesino Epistemologies of Wellness to Interrupt Necropolitical Health Policy

• In Event: Transforming Destructive Discourses: Identifying Rhetorical State Violence and Strategizing Toward Life

Abstract

Upon appointment to Guatemalan Health Minister, Lucrecia Hernández Mack implemented the Inclusive Model of Health (IMH), requiring doctors to treat patients who use non-medical vocabulary to describe ailments. Considering the importance of community-based knowledges in developing policy, Mack’s IMH instructs medical professionals to trust patients with diverse, non-traditional knowledges. I identify a shift from necropolitical policy that discriminates against indigenous and poor people toward policy derived from campesino epistemologies. Engaging María Lugones, I argue that the IMH shows how decolonial epistemology brought to bear on policy can fundamentally alter who is allowed to live and die in the state’s care.

Presenter

• Kristen Kolenz, The Ohio State University