Paper Short Abstract:

This research combines the sciences of Medical Anthropology and Ecofeminism to analyze the agricultural experiences of benniza'a women in Oaxaca, Mexico. It explores feminized strategies for responding to the health conditions that the Anthropocene produces and how these affect gender roles.

Paper Abstract:

Building from the approach of the Anthropocene, which is already suited to discussion in several fields of sciences, we assume the premise that “embodied inequalities of the Anthropocene” exist. Then, we aim to combine it with tools of Medical Anthropology to show the agricultural experience of the Zapotec women in the municipality of Villa Díaz Ordaz, Oaxaca, Mexico, based on field research. To this purpose, ecofeminist practices to confront local processes that evidence the anthropocene will be analyzed through ethnography in the field where they occur.

At the same time, we explore the strategies which have been feminized to respond to the different health conditions that the Anthropocene produces among the benniza'a population, at both in their daily life and on their agricultural practices, since these have affected some gender roles, essentially to those who have historically dedicated themselves to care in the family environment. Finally, we combine the disciplinary work of the both Anthropocene-Ecofeminist approaches to dialogue with conceptual tools from Medical Anthropology. They provide us with some reflections to identify how the Anthropocene is affecting the human and not human body, and how we can face it through different tools that might contribute to transforming the relationship between human-environment.