“WE HELP OURSELVES”: SELF-TREATMENT USING MEDICINAL PLANTS AMONG Q’EQCHI’ MAYA VILLAGERS OF SOUTHERN BELIZE
Date
2025-04-28
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0009-0000-8251-220X
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
This thesis explores the role and significance of self-treatment using medicinal plants in the health care and lives of Q’eqchi’ villagers in southern Belize. Grounded in medical anthropology, this research employs a community-based ethnographic approach, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and participant-led plant walks, to explore medicinal plant use in Q’eqchi’ health practices across three key areas of inquiry: (1) the nature and extent of medicinal plant knowledge and use at the household level; (2) the transmission and acquisition of medicinal plant knowledge among Q’eqchi’ villagers; and (3) the moments when medicinal plant use is employed as a health-seeking behaviour. Using assemblage thinking to explore how medicinal plants are “made” within and, in turn, “make” Q’eqchi’ lives, this research reveals that medicinal plants occupy a central role across the material, social, and political dimensions that define Q’eqchi’ health and well-being. First, the material role of medicinal plants in managing diverse ailments within the Q’eqchi’ popular health sector is revealed through plant walks conducted with a selected sample of participants, which identified an estimated 82 unique plants used to address 75 distinct health problems. Second, the social role of medicinal plants is highlighted through diverse learning pathways, in which the transmission of plant knowledge occurs across socio-spatial networks where empirical knowledge is cultivated and expressed, constituting a form of collective care. This knowledge transmission underscores the importance of kin and community relationships, as well as traditional settlement patterns sustained by land access, in supporting Q’eqchi’ health and well-being. Finally, the political role of medicinal plants emerges in their capacity to assert both bodily and political autonomy, where medicinal plant use becomes an act of resistance, enabling Q’eqchi’ villagers to reclaim agency over their health in the face of socio-economic and political barriers that create and exacerbate sickness and threaten well-being.
Description
Keywords
Q’eqchi’ Maya, Self-treatment, Traditional medicine, Medicinal plant use, Popular health care sector, Medical anthropology, Community-based participatory research (CBPR), Assemblage thinking, Collective care, Indigenous Medicine, Empirical knowledge
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Archaeology and Anthropology
Program
Anthropology