Health & Healing
2
On the Border between Science and Spirituality:
An Ethnography of Health of Healing in Mexico
Abstract
For many individuals living with a chronic illness in the United States, the
journey towards achieving health is often mutually exclusive from the path toward
experiencing physical and spiritual healing. In this manuscript, I will relate a critical
incident that has shaped my passion for investigating non-biomedical forms of healthcare.
This passion led me to take a two-week ethnography course in Mexico City to examine
the juxtaposition of science and spirituality in the Mexican context. This research was
conducted during this class and illustrates how the separation of science and spirituality
often precludes the experience of achieving both health and healing for chronically ill
individuals. In addition, this manuscript represents a professional borderland, as I shed
my quantitative background in my first attempt to conduct ethnographic research on
health. This is the initial stage of a project intended to integrate both quantitative and
qualitative perspectives on non-biomedical forms of health and healing in Mexico.
Convention