Medical Anthropology, Indigeneity, Indigenous health practices, Latin America, women political representation, public health.
Teresa Martinez-Chavez
Entered Fall 2016
My research interest centers on the understanding of power relations in the health sector and the ways Indigenous communities in Latin America have experienced the pressures of biomedical hegemony. I am interested in looking at how institutions of different biomedical health programs have changed Indigenous people’s health, their traditional healing beliefs, as well as their social, and political infrastructure.
Born and raised in Oaxaca, Mexico, I moved to the United States at the age of 16. After attending community college, I transferred to the University of California Santa Cruz. My courses on Medical Anthropology exposed me to the various adaptive and ever changing medical systems around the globe and fueled my interest to investigate traditional healing practices alongside the fast growing ideologies of Western medicine in Indigenous communities.