Representation of HPV in Wayuu women

Abstract

The work exposes the representations of Wayuu women about the human papilloma virus. The objectives are: to register their notions and concepts of HPV and describe the therapeutic resources used from their intercultural experience. Ethnography was the method with participant observation in the gynecological consultation of the Dr. Armando Castillo Plaza Maternity (MACP), Maracaibo (Venezuela), interviews with six (6) Wayuu women who attend as patients and informal conversations. The paper falls within the thematic area of the anthropology of medicine, and the model for the interpretive analysis was built from the contributions of M. Douglas (1973, 1985), Durkheim (1992), Bourdieu (2000, 2002) and G. Durand (2005). It is concluded by establishing a parallel with the myth of the dentate vagina to assess its use as a resource for the design of cross-cultural health policies for the prevention and care of HPV.