Ethnomedicine and world‐view: A comparative analysis of the incorporation and rejection of contraceptive methods among Argentine women

Abstract

Using field data gathered among two female groups the author analyses motives for incorporating or rejecting different kinds of contraceptive method. The groups considered are indigenous Pilagá women of northeast Argentina and criollo peasant women who have migrated from the same area of northeast Argentina and from Paraguay to Buenos Aires city. The migrant criollo women reject the Western contraceptive practices that they are compelled to use in Buenos Aires hospitals. The indigenous women also reject Western methods on the few occasions that they visit the local rural hospital, but they have adopted the contraceptive methods of those criollo women who remain in the area. In order to explain this difference in willingness to incorporate new techniques, the author analyses the two groups’ ethnophysiological theories, and their ideas of the person, of illness and of therapy (seen in connection with their symbolic systems). Traditional contraceptive methods and their practical and symbolic efficacy are also examined, as are the use of abortion as a valid choice in the face of an unwanted pregnancy and the causes of the failure of professional hospital efforts to work for them. The refusal of the peasant criollo women to adopt hospital techniques exposes a hospital failure that leads to an increase in unwanted pregnancies and abortion. The author points out the importance of using cultural insights in order to find a solution to this female health problem.