Intercultural interpretations about concepts of nutrition: body formation among the tikuna indians of the colombian amazon trapeze

This paper approaches the indigenous perceptions about the formation of an infant body by the Tikuna Indians of San Martin de Amacayacu, who live in the south of the Colombian Amazon Trapeze. Indigenous concepts about nutrition are not comparable with the concepts of nutrition and malnutrition from...

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Autores:
León Taborda, Ana María
Tipo de recurso:
Article of journal
Fecha de publicación:
2011
Institución:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Repositorio:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Idioma:
spa
OAI Identifier:
oai:repositorio.unal.edu.co:unal/28158
Acceso en línea:
https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/handle/unal/28158
http://bdigital.unal.edu.co/18206/
Palabra clave:
Nutrición
antropología
etnografía
Trapecio amazónico
tikuna
cuerpo
nutrición infantil
creencias alimentarias
dietas
antropometría.
Nutrition
nutrition anthropology
Amazon Trapeze
Tikuna
body
child nutrition
food beliefs
diets
anthropometry.
Rights
openAccess
License
Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional
Description
Summary:This paper approaches the indigenous perceptions about the formation of an infant body by the Tikuna Indians of San Martin de Amacayacu, who live in the south of the Colombian Amazon Trapeze. Indigenous concepts about nutrition are not comparable with the concepts of nutrition and malnutrition from the perspective of biological quantification. For the natives, body formation initiates with their myths of origin, everyday subsistence activities, relationships with natural beings and the bestowal of care of infant babies and small children. For health professionals, in contrast, the conception of the human body is based upon a biological, nutritional and anthropometric logic. The article shows the differences between these two visions, calling for an intercultural rethinking to make them compatible in order to avoid infant deaths associated with nutritional deficiencies.