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Letting the Air Out: Aire as an Empty Signifier in Oaxacan Understandings of Illness

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Abstract

“Air (aire, also aigre) in the body” is a frequent explanation of illness according to the traditional medical beliefs in Mexico. Anthropologists have generally scrutinized aire in the context of other common folk illnesses treated by traditional healers (curanderas). However, drawing on my research in the communities of Northern Oaxaca I suggest that aire occupies a more distinct position in the folk medical cosmology than it has usually been credited with. This distinction rests on the notion’s exceptional ambivalence and openness to multiple interpretations. “Air” is recurred to as the cause of illness mainly in situations where every other explanation, either “traditional” or “biomedical,” seems to be inadequate. The physical properties of air—its transparency, invisibility, apparent immateriality, near omnipresence, and virtual “nothingness”—render it a suitable explanation of the last resort. Local understandings of what aire “is” are often vague and elusive, and in many respects the term functions in folk medical discourse as an “empty signifier.”

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Notes

  1. A concise overview of ethnomedical research conducted in Oaxaca during the second half of the twentieth century can be found in Rubel and Browner (1999).

  2. The percentage of Oaxacan population identifying with an indigenous group is actually much higher. For example, many people in the Sierra Juárez who consider themselves Zapotec are, in fact, monolingual Spanish speakers. It is also important to note that the concept of “indigeneity” is contested and its usage as an identity label in contemporary Oaxaca is rather complex, extending beyond the dichotomy of indigenous/non-indigenous, as Norget (2010) clearly demonstrates.

  3. The label “Zapotec” covers a variety of languages and dialects that can be mutually unintelligible. The Zapotec of the Sierra Norte often refer to themselves also as “serranos.”

  4. The role of traditional midwives in rural Oaxaca and the relationship between different models of reproductive care have been discussed in detail by Sesia (1996).

  5. I use the word ‘Protestant’ (protestante) as a cover term for members of all non-Catholic Christian churches, obviously a very heterogeneous group. Not all denominations advocate a clear split with traditional beliefs and practices, including folk medicine, but since these differences remain beyond the scope of this paper, I am using a generalizing label for the sake of simplicity and clarity.

  6. This survey, based on a random sample of 100 inhabitants of Capulálpam, focused on a variety of demographic indicators, as well as on religious and social attitudes.

  7. Although healers are a heterogeneous group and anthropological literature often distinguishes between parteras (midwives), sobadoras (manual therapists), yerberos (herbalists), and various other subcategories (e.g. Rubel and Browner 1999:89), I am using the generalizing concept “curandera”/“healer” throughout the article, because this was the only term that my informants themselves used.

  8. The method is used in many parts of Latin America. Foster (1953:209) claims that the origin of the egg cure is one of the “mysteries of folk medicine,” assuming that it is probably of European origin.

  9. Of course, in its most original form this argument can be traced back to Frazer’s association of breath and spirit.

  10. I am opting for “empty” instead of “floating signifier” here simply for the sake of consistency although both terms are appropriate for my argument.

  11. Ohnuki-Tierney actually uses the term “zero signifier.”

  12. An eloquent although not very recent example is the study by Clark (1970), who describes Mexican–American tuberculosis patients’ fear of the treatment called pneumothorax because it entails the pumping of air into the patient’s chest cavity to restrict the movement of the diseased lung. However, when the word “air” used in the treatment description was substituted by “oxygen,” the confusion with mal aire was avoided.

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Funding

This research was funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence CECT), and the Estonian Science Foundation (Grant No 8335).

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  1. Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 35, P.O. Box 18, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Toomas Gross

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Gross, T. Letting the Air Out: Aire as an Empty Signifier in Oaxacan Understandings of Illness. Cult Med Psychiatry 40, 707–725 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-016-9501-z

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