Rural public health systems and accountability politics: insights from grassroots health rights defenders in Guatemala

Abstract

As the pandemic reveals how multiple intersecting inequalities affect public health, the work of rural activists defending their communities' rights to health, land, and gender, ethnic and environmental justice demonstrate how intersectional analysis can be put into practice. In the interviews that follow, Guatemalan Maya Tz'utujil activists Paulina Culum and Benilda Batzin describe how ‘health rights defenders’ seek justice for rural indigenous communities–work that the pandemic makes more critical than ever. Their strategies and insights have implications for addressing rural health rights around the world.