Brett Hendrickson, “Border Medicine: A Transcultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo” (NYU Press, 2014)

New Books in Latino Studies · Sep 17, 2015 · 45m

Mexican American religious healing – often called curanderismo – is a vital component of life in the US-Mexican borderlands. In his book Border Medicine: A Transcultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo (New York University Press, 2014) – Brett Hendrickson tracks healers going back to the nineteenth century and even before. He argues that these healing practices were never only Mexican American nor were they a sign of an inability to develop modern bio-medicine. They have in fact been shaped in a transcultural context where ideas about metaphysical healing and the efficacy of gifted…