Braided Systems of Care: An Anthropological Exploration of the Interface of Western Biomedicine and Traditional Healing Practices, Sydnae Taylor, UG '23 (3968056)

What is health? This ostensibly simple question often provokes pause in most people who attempt an answer. Although there are definitions to this question, in reality people gauge their health relative to personal experiences and not to definitions. No two people’s journey through affliction and health-seeking is the same. This presentation gives insight into how ethnomedicine and biomedicine are studied from an anthropological perspective. I accomplish this by exploring ethnographic accounts of the figure of the healer, various materia medica, people's own notions of efficacy, and how they have navigated between various healing systems in their quest for better health for themselves and their communities. The introductory research and exploration seen in this junior paper will be furthered in ethnographic senior thesis research in Bolivia in the Summer of 2022. Thank you for watching.