The Devil Made Her Do it: Understanding Suicide, Demonic Discourse, and the Social Construction of \u27Health\u27 in Yucatan, Mexico

In the state of Yucatan, Mexico, the suicide rate more than doubles the Mexican national average. This article uses ethnographic data to argue that 1) local understandings of suicide in Yucatán reflect a logic of health among Yucatec Maya people hinging on the belief that spiritual, bodily, and spatial balance must be maintained in order to prevent “illness,” understood as bodily and spiritual suffering; and 2) that Yucatec Maya users of Mexico’s public health system readily adapt the biomedical model to existing paradigms that comingle spiritual, mental, and bodily health due in great part to the inherent contradictions in both systems that simultaneously attribute responsibility for suicide and take it away. This apparent contradiction is thus a sympathetic template on which biomedical discourse and its imperfect application can map itself

Latour’s AIME, Indigenous Critique, and Ontological Turns in a Mexican Psychiatric Hospital: Approaching Registers of Visibility in Three Conceptual Turns

The “ontological turn” presents an opportunity to re-examine anthropological engagements with various phenomena across multiple modes of existence. One possible terrain for engagement is the acute ward of a psychiatric hospital in Yucatan, Mexico, where psychiatrists, patients, and various invisible beings coexist. By examining the actions and words of patients and doctors in the ward, I consider Latour’s engagement with invisible beings in his recent publication, AIME, alongside critiques from indigenous scholars who argue that scholarship in the ontological turn ignores indigenous frames of reference that already grant ontological status to nonhumans. I engage in an ontological reading of the concept of (in)visibility in the writing of indigenous scholars to explore how indigenous ontologies can inform my analysis. Finally, I build on my engagement with Latour and indigenous critique to introduce the concept of registers of visibility as a mode of existence that encompasses both what an actor is capable of seeing and how an actor renders themselves visible to others

Creating Order In The Bureaucratic Register: An Analysis Of Suicide Crime Scene Investigations In Southern Mexico

Crime scene investigation reports, like other kids of official bureaucratic documents, serve an important purpose in the functioning of modern states. This article examines crime scene investigation reports from a city in southeastern Mexico pseudonymously called La Ciudad. The article combines textual discourse analysis of police suicide investigation reports with ethnographic analysis of police investigative practices to ask, how do law enforcement documents showcase the interactions between law enforcement agents and citizens? In what way can ethnographic analysis highlight and supplement the strengths and limitations of law enforcement documents as prisms of social reality? The complex and contested relationship between representatives of a Mexican law enforcement agency and the citizenry it claims to protect is visible in the documents it produces. The ethnographic material further deepens the reader\u27s understanding of the ways in which law enforcement agents and common citizens form relationships based on negotiation and distrust

Unraveling Ix Tab: Revisiting The Suicide Goddess In Maya Archaeology

Ix Tab, the ancient Maya suicide goddess, appears in various settings in the contemporary popular culture of Yucatán, Mexico. In a state where the suicide rate is double the Mexican national average, discourses about Ix Tab feed misconceptions about indigenous proclivities to suicide and render Maya people exotic. In an effort to unravel the origins of Ix Tab and the contemporary beliefs about indigenous suicide, we studied the ethnohistoric origins of Ix Tab in Diego de Landa\u27s Relación de las cosas de Yucatán and reviewed iconography from art databases and more than forty-four hundred pages of published works to identify either an ancient Maya suicide deity or suicide by hanging as a motif in ancient Maya art. Our research found no iconographic evidence of a suicide deity, and we came upon only two images of humans hanging by the neck, neither representing suicide. This indicates that there was no ancient Maya suicide deity and that suicide by hanging was not a significant motif among the ancient Maya

Pure Gold For Broken Bodies: Discursive Techniques Constructing Milk Banking And Peer Milk Sharing In U.S. News

Technological advances provide increased ability to transfer human tissues—blood, organs, milk—from one body to another. This article analyzes mechanisms of reality construction in U.S. news to construct shared human breast milk. Articles used typifications and human interest stories to convey participants as victims, lay heroes, and villains. Milk banking was portrayed as institutionally integrated through associations, expert testimonies, and formalized procedures, making banked milk “pure gold.” Peer sharing was portrayed as institutionally opposed through institutional warnings, expert testimonies, informal procedures, and hypothetical atrocities, making peer milk “fool\u27s gold.” Findings suggest that “biovalue” of human milk is interconnected with institutional processing

“That's Not the Milk Sharing I'm Doing”: Responses to a Pediatrics Article from Women Who Milk Share

An article published in the journal Pediatrics in 2013 revealing the presence of bacteria in breast milk purchased online resulted in increased media attention to peer-to-peer breast milk sharing. Media representations portray women who milk share as well-intentioned but uninformed about the possible dangers of milk sharing. Our study explores the reactions of mothers who milk share to media representations of the study. Data consist of an online survey of 392 and in-depth interviews with thirty milk sharing participants in Central Florida. Our findings show that 54.5 percent of participants expressed skepticism by using knowledge of the scientific method to question the Pediatrics study\u27s methods and findings, the researchers\u27 motives, and the remarkability of the findings. The 43.5 percent of participants who accepted the Pediatrics study\u27s findings rejected its applicability to their own practices. They distinguished the sale/purchase from the free exchange of breast milk, highlighted the importance of hygiene and proper milk handling practices, and emphasized the critical role of trust, which distinguished their own milk sharing practices from those examined in the Pediatrics study. We argue that milk sharing mothers, as experience-based experts on milk sharing, identify gaps between the assumptions guiding the design of the Pediatrics studies and their own practices. Taking their perspectives into account in future studies could result in research that more accurately measures the safety of peer-to-peer milk sharing

“That\u27S Not The Milk Sharing I\u27M Doing”: Responses To A Pediatrics Article From Women Who Milk Share

An article published in the journal Pediatrics in 2013 revealing the presence of bacteria in breast milk purchased online resulted in increased media attention to peer-to-peer breast milk sharing. Media representations portray women who milk share as well-intentioned but uninformed about the possible dangers of milk sharing. Our study explores the reactions of mothers who milk share to media representations of the study. Data consist of an online survey of 392 and in-depth interviews with thirty milk sharing participants in Central Florida. Our findings show that 54.5 percent of participants expressed skepticism by using knowledge of the scientific method to question the Pediatrics study\u27s methods and findings, the researchers\u27 motives, and the remarkability of the findings. The 43.5 percent of participants who accepted the Pediatrics study\u27s findings rejected its applicability to their own practices. They distinguished the sale/purchase from the free exchange of breast milk, highlighted the importance of hygiene and proper milk handling practices, and emphasized the critical role of trust, which distinguished their own milk sharing practices from those examined in the Pediatrics study. We argue that milk sharing mothers, as experience-based experts on milk sharing, identify gaps between the assumptions guiding the design of the Pediatrics studies and their own practices. Taking their perspectives into account in future studies could result in research that more accurately measures the safety of peer-to-peer milk sharing

“Breast Is Best, Donor Next”: Peer Breastmilk Sharing In Contemporary Western Motherhood

Peer breastmilk sharing—the unregulated gifting of human milk for the purpose of feeding a child—is a growing practice in Western societies despite official warnings against it. Milk sharing occurs in a context of breastfeeding promotion, and cultural expectations that mothers take individual responsibility for their children\u27s health, weigh expert recommendations on childrearing, and engage in responsible consumerism to minimize children\u27s toxic exposure. This study analyzes the perspectives of parents who milk-share within this broader context. Data consist of a survey asking 392 parents who milk-share to evaluate the healthiness of mothers’ own milk, peer-shared milk, and formula, and explain their evaluations. Participants rated mothers’ breastmilk as healthiest, followed closely by peer-shared milk, and infant formula as least healthy. They drew on scientific discourses regarding the health benefits of breastmilk, and natural versus artificial dichotomies to construct formula as unhealthy based on its synthetic makeup. Engaging with scientific and neoliberal motherhood in their constructions, peer-shared breastmilk emerged as a healthier option than formula when mothers’ own milk was unavailable