Book Review: Migration, Mujercitas, and Medicine Men: Living in Urban Mexico

Abstract

The author makes clear that this ethnographic journey is 'not a standard anthropology of a barrio' (p. 2); instead, her book 'engages with a Mexican ethnographic and urban field that has emerged through, rather than being representative of, a barrio' (p. 3; emphasis in the original). The author contrasts the experiences of residents who participate in new variants of the Roman Catholic Church - as expressed through the Comunidades Eclesiales de Base - with those of persons who belong to 'traditional' Catholic groups. Napolitano compares the government-dominated institutional health care system with alternative 'popular medicines', including self-diagnosis, over-the-counter drugs, homeopaths, herbalists, body manipulators (sobadores), and curanderos.