Embodied Politics illuminates the influential force of public health promotion in indigenous migrant communities by examining the Indigenous Health Project (IHP), a culturally and linguistically competent initiative that uses health workshops, health messages, and social programs to mitigate the structural vulnerability of Oaxacan migrants in California. Embodied Politics reconstructs how this initiative came to exist and describes how it operates. At the same time, it points out the conflicts, resistances, and counter-acts that emerge through the IHP’s attempts to guide the health behaviors and practices of Triqui and Mixteco migrants. Arguing for a structurally competent approach to migrant health, Embodied Politics shows how efforts to promote indigenous health may actually reinforce the same social and political economic forces, namely structural racism and neoliberalism, that are undermining the health of indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico and the United States.
Preface
Chapter 1 The Paradoxical Politics of Health Promotion
Chapter 2 Structural Violence, Migrant Activism, and Indigenous Health
Chapter 3 The “Mexican Model” of Health: Examining the Travels and Translations of Health Promotion
Chapter 4 Números, Números, Números: Making Health Programs Accountable
Chapter 5 Cultural Sensitivity Training and the Cultural Politics of Teaching Tolerance
Chapter 6 La Lucha Sigue: Migrant Activism and the Ongoing Struggle to Promote Indigenous Health
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index