“Why not be health agents ourselves” Women and health politics in an Argentinian peasant movement

Abstract

Through an ethnographic study of the political actions around health created by the Peasant Movement of Santiago del Estero-Via Campesina (MOCASE-VC) of Argentina, we analyze its relationship, as a collective actor, with the public health care system, and within this framework, we explore the strategies undertaken by peasant women regarding their sexual and (non) reproductive health. We argue that the organization has created its own perspective that we have termed as apropiación crítica-contestación estratégica [critical appropriation-strategic contestation] to the medical and health model, which in turn is included in its more general political position. This trajectory causes a subjective turn in the women that re-positions them in the doctor-patient relationship and against the institutional violence of which they are victim, although on their bodies are intertwined multiple pressures that the Movement does not always manage to accompany.