Challenges, inequalities and COVID-19: Examples from indigenous Oaxaca, Mexico

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 is a challenge for indigenous communities in Mexico. Social inequalities and limited access to services combine with historical patterns of discrimination to amplify its negative impacts. Nevertheless, there are important ways in which indigenous communities organise and respond. Our paper, organised in three parts, summarises these challenges as well as the response. In the first section, we introduce indigenous Oaxaca and the challenges facing indigenous communities. In the second section, we note the ways in which indigenous communities rely on their traditions in response to the pandemic and limitations they face. In the third and concluding section, we argue that the social inequalities that define indigenous life in Oaxaca must be acknowledged in order to create an effective public health response to COVID-19.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• indigenous Mexico
• social inequality
• Oaxaca
• Mexico
• indigenous response to Covid-19

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments. Also, our thanks to Dr. Arthur Murphy and Marcia Inhorn for their encouragement and support. Finally, thanks to the National Science Foundation and our home institutions, The Ohio State University and the Universidad Tecnológica de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, for their support during a complicated year. Any errors are solely our responsibility.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 See also the blog by Rothstein, The coronavirus will explode achievement gaps in education, at https://www.epi.org/blog/the-coronavirus-will-explode-achievement-gaps-in-education/; and, Di Gropello’s world bank blog, The costs of COVID-19 in education in Latin America. Acting now to protect the future of our children, at https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/costs-covid-19-education-latin-america-acting-now-protect-future-our-children.

2 https://www.gob.mx/sep/es/articulos/comunicado-conjunto-no-3-presentan-salud-y-sep-medidas-de-prevencion-para-el-sector-educativo-nacional-por-covid-19?idiom=es.

3 https://aprendeencasa.sep.gob.mx/.

4 CONEVAL estimates that Oaxaca was home to 13.3 thousand Covid-19 cases, or about 2 percent of the nation’s total of 553,500 as of August 29, 2020; https://coneval.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/db5c233bb31f4c4189ded7d0edcacf92.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is apart of Cohen’s National Science Foundation research grant: Household Producer Effects of Rural Diet Transformation, BCS award 1918324.