Identity, ideology and inequality: Methodologies in medical anthropology, Guatemala 1950–1995

Abstract

This paper sketches the history of medical anthropology in Guatemala, focusing on how investigations carried out during the 1950s served as methodological and ideological foundations for subsequent work. Problematic examples from the literature and from the author's experience are used to provide insight into the nature of the anthropologist's role in applied research and development. For example, medical anthropologists are often hired to help navigate the gulf between the ideological identities of indigenous peoples and those of biomedical researchers and international development specialists. Instead of recognizing the inherently ethical nature of this work and acting accordingly, many anthropologists have adopted a detached, “scientific” and impossibly value-free perspective. This paper proposes a transformation of this role into one that (1) maintains an independent and critical relationship to mainstream science, (2) elaborates and advocates the indigenous agenda, and (3) adopts an explicitly value-filled ideology, methodology and theoretical framework.