Identifying Indigenous strengths for health and wellbeing: Targeting the legacy of colonial masculinities in Peru

Abstract

Indigenous communities often have poor health outcomes due to a combination of structural factors such as poverty, low education and employment, and gender inequality. For these communities, colonization and racism, have played a role in reinforcing the patriarchal social order. The imposition of patriarchal social norms by colonial powers worsened existing inequalities and brought poorer health outcomes for women, including increased violence from men. In this paper, we explore the interplay between gender, culture, and wellbeing drawing on a framework of Coloniality of Gender to understand how communities can be appropriately supported to improve women's health and wellbeing. This has been done through 18 in-depth interviews with women and men of the Quechua speaking communities of a remote island in the Peruvian Highlands. We use a framework of Buen vivir, a uniquely Andean concept, that refers to living in harmony with nature and others, to identify community strengths that could be used to improve women's health and wellbeing in this setting. Three strengths were identified: (1) challenging racism and discrimination, (2) ensuring livelihoods in the face of crisis, and (3) healing from nature and land. Dismantling colonial masculinities and re-defining how men view themselves within society might be a step to improving women's health and wellbeing. Strengths identified in this study may allow communities to reconnect with their cultural traditions, nature and the land while also allowing men to communicate and construct economic wellbeing together with women. Such strengths disrupt ideas of colonial masculinity and foster a sense of pride in communal living and the Indigenous way of life, which can help improve the health and wellbeing of all people in this setting.