Best Practices in Intercultural Health

This paper presents some of the background research that contributed to the discussions within the Inter-American Development Bank's policy and strategy regarding indigenous health issues. The paper's conceptual approach and good practice research helped focus the discussion on the importance of intercultural health practices to promote indigenous peoples' access to allopathic health as well as to strengthen those traditional health practices based on indigenous peoples' own knowledge, culture, social networks, institutions and ways of life, that have shown their effectiveness. The paper presents five intercultural health experiences (in Suriname, Guatemala, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia) that are considered best practices in the field. Although poorly financed, these experiences highlight the significance to indigenous peoples of health models that bridge the gap between state-financed allopathic health services and their own indigenous health systems. This study however, does not represent a medical trial on the efficacy or efficiency of intercultural health models.Afro Descendents & Indigenous Peoples, Health Care, intercultural health, health care, indigenous peoples, health care services

Globalization, Alienation and the Loss of Other-Wiseness

The author focuses on the impact of globalization on different aspects of civil society. He argues that the global division of labour, and the exodus of transnational corporations has resulted in a new configuration of the forces of integration and fragmentation of regional economies. Postmodernist emphasis on heterogeneity and uniqueness of cultural life has given the Radical Right justification for excluding attention to those considered as cultural minorities. Rather, we are reduced to a common denominator of economic strength as the only criterion of value and legitimacy.Le point de mire de cet article est l'impact de la globalisation sur les différents aspects de la société civile. L'auteur développe une argumentation selon laquelle la division globale du travail et l'exode des entreprises supranationales a entraîné une fragmentation des économies régionales et une reconfiguration des forces d'intégrations. L'emphase postmoderniste mise sur le caractère à la fois hétérogène et unitaire de la vie culturelle a fourni à la Droite Radicale des justifications pour marginaliser ceux que l'on considère comme faisant partie des minorités culturelles. Pire, nous en sommes réduits à considérer le dénominateur commun de la puissance économique comme le critère exclusif de toute valeur et de toute légitimité

Natural Capital and Biodiversity:Money, Markets and Offsets

This chapter is concerned with the commodification of biodiversity, and in particular with the development of offset markets as a means to achieving “no net loss” or “net gains” in biodiversity. The chapter places the commodification of biodiversity in the context of wider debates about the commodification of environmental goods. What are the sources of environmental problems such as biodiversity loss? Market endorsing arguments in neo-classical welfare economics claim that their source lies in the incomplete commodification of environmental goods and the solution in their commodification. Market-sceptical positions are critical of arguments for commodification and more strongly claim that the generalised commodification of environmental goods is itself a source of environmental problems. The chapter shows how commodification of biodiversity and offset markets illustrate some of the problems with the commodification of environmental goods: environmental governance is rendered consistent with systemic growth imperatives that are a source of environmental problems; market modes of valuation foster ubiquitous substitutability; forms of injustice result through the displacement of burdens and the loss of places and livelihoods that meet vital biological and social needs. These problems are related. The design of systems of environmental governance consistent with continuing economic growth requires places and habitats to be substitutable so their destruction can be compensated with “no net loss.” The shift in location shifts burdens and impacts. Where it is most “efficient” to shift them is to the poor. Environmental problems such as biodiversity loss have their source not in incomplete commodification, but rather in their commodification