The emergence of diabetes in a Tapiete community of Salta: Gender, ethnicity and relations with the health system

Abstract

In Argentina, the presence of diabetes and other chronic diseases among indigenous populations has not yet been sufficiently studied. This article is the result of an ethnographic study of the sociocultural and gender determinants that are involved in diabetes care and prevention processes among the Tapiete people in the province of Salta. The research combined participant observation and interviews both with adult men and women diagnosed with diabetes and with nurses and doctors at a primary care center in Mision Los Tapietes and at a hospital in Tartagal between August and September of 2019. The growing presence of diabetes has been observed in the community, along with a lack of articulation of social and health interventions with native practices of healthdisease-care, as well as problems in communicating diagnosis and treatment options, intensified by difficulties regarding access to the healthcare system. The article examines the complexity of the epidemiological transition, meanings of chronic disease for men and women, the traumatic emergence of diabetes, and difficulties in exercising the right to health among indigenous populations.