Resumen

MONTESI, Laura. Exchange Between Scientific and Lay Knowledges: An Urgent Dialogue for the Understanding of and Action against Diabetes. Entrediversidades rev. cienc. soc. humanid. [online]. 2022, vol.9, n.1, pp.223-246.  Epub 15-Mar-2023. ISSN 2007-7610.  https://doi.org/10.31644/ed.v9.n1.2022.a09.

Diabetes mellitus, as well as other metabolic disorders, are on the rise in Mexico, despite the implementation of several public health strategies. This article questions the epistemologic bases of such strategies and calls for a paradigm shift, achievable though the exchange between scientific and lay knowledges. Drawing on eight years of ethnographic fieldwork among an indigenous group in Mexico, it describes how ‘other’ interpretations of diabetes -usually subaltern or ignored- present valuable epistemic contributions that resonate with recent biosocial scientific developments which criticize the autonomy of the individual and the body-mind and body-environment divide. This dialogue, although permeated with tensions, can have transcendental implications for how we get to know and act against diabetes mellitus.

Palabras llave : Peoples knowledge on diabetes; Anthropology as a trickster between understandings of diabetes; epistemic changes to know and address diabetes.