medical dialogue and the political economy of medical pluralism: a case from rural highland Bolivia

In environments that are ethnically and medically pluralistic, medical dialogue is an arena in which political and economic processes take place. Through medical dialogue, the content of ethnic identity is constructed and negotiated. Medical dialogue therefore can serve as a window through which one can view social processes. Data from a rural highland Bolivian town demonstrate these theses, which have implications for the common dichotomy in medical anthropology that divides medical systems into “traditional” and “modern.”