Experiencias de mujeres yerbateras en prácticas ancestrales de la medicina en la Asociación Intercultural de Yachak Aiyapu Pumapungo, en el período 2023 - 2024

Abstract

Historically, the dominant logics have delegitimized and devalued other types of knowledge that have not been produced by white, European, heteroxual, upper class men, which is why this research focuses on addressing how the work of women herbalists within the framework of recovery of the knowledge that was born in the South, are part of a resistance that fights to make visible and recognize the knowledge that has been transmitted through generations and that is part of the Latin American cultural identity. For this reason, the general objective of our study is to systematize the experiences of herbal women from the Intercultural Association of Yachak Aiyapu Pumapungo in ancestral medical practices. The research has a qualitative approach of descriptive scope since it seeks to interpret the experiences of herbal women from a critical position, the design is a combination of action research and phenomenology. We will work with two techniques: interviews with semi-structured questions and focus groups. The results aim to make visible how the field of ancestral medicine is also subject to following patriarchal mandates, which leads to women being subject to inequality and discrimination. But in addition to revealing the gender bias, we also want to show how herbal women are possessors of their own knowledge that, despite the processes of coloniality and globalization, their efforts are still valid and that they are also subjects of knowledge and agents of change.