Decolonizing healing: weaving the curandera path

ABSTRACT

This paper considers how to heal the fragmentation imposed by dominant logics. It questions whether the curandera can be a path for healing the pain caused by such fragmentation. The argument is that this fragmentation needs to be unpacked to become visible for any healing to take place. This article brings together the ideas on modernity/coloniality and feminist theorizing mostly by those who have chosen the category of woman of colour to build coalition (Lugones [2015]. A decolonial revisiting of gender) and those feminisms that have engaged with healing and/or spirituality and that are at the margins of dominant epistemologies. These feminisms allow unmuting the curandera path.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonizing healing
• decolonial feminism
• fragmentation
• curandera
• decoloniality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Also known as Aztecs.

2 All quotes from Favela are personal translations from Spanish to English.

3 Fragments of this text are taken from the author’s doctoral dissertation available through Erasmus University.

4 This term is used by the Kuna indigenous people to refer to these territories. They are originally from parts of what became Colombia and Panama. It is widely used by those engaged with decolonial thought.

5 Feminine form of the word ancestors.

6 Fragment taken from author’s book in Spanish ‘volver a la cuerpa, endometriosis y salud autogestiva’.

7 Fragment of the poem entitled ‘Voice’.

8 Fragment taken from the author’s doctoral dissertation available through Erasmus University.

9 From an unpublished version of the article shared by the authors.

10 Fragments and ideas present in the authors’ book ‘volver a la cuerpa, endometriosis y salud autogestiva’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paulina Trejo Méndez

Dr. Paulina Trejo Méndez teaches at the University of Bonn. They are an independent researcher and artist with a PhD (Cum Laude) in development studies from Erasmus University Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. They work on the politics of knowledge and focus on forms of resistance to the violence of coloniality, particularly to epistemicide (erasure of ways knowing-being) and feminicide (erasure of racialized-gendered-feminized bodies), looking at how these intertwine. Their art and research projects bring together feminisms, decoloniality, the colonial wound, healing, medical gaze, spirituality and politics. They are a member of the self-managed publishing house Cooperativa Editorial Retos that brings together the work of rebellious women of colour, trans, indigenous, black activists, academics and artists. They write for the feminist magazines Proyecto Kahlo and Volcánicas Revista and about decoloniality in their blog decolonize. La Catártica is their feminist blog in Spanish, and they are the co-founder of Comalli Collective bringing projects on art and healing. They conduct workshops on body autonomy and healing from a feminist lens. This is to delve into the understanding of embodied oppression and work towards social justice in their project volveralcuerpx (back to the body).