Disir
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On the outskirts of some small Indigenous communities in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, a few volunteer guards keep watch along roads blocked by makeshift barricades of chains, stones and wood.
The invader they are trying to stop is COVID-19.
For many of Mexico’s Indigenous people, poor and ignored by state and federal governments, the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is one that rests primarily with themselves, said Jeffrey Cohen, a professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University.
That means they must take steps like limiting access to their villages.
“Most of these communities only have one road in and out,” Cohen said. “So these guards, called topiles, block that road so that outsiders with the virus won’t get in – and residents won’t go to a nearby city and potentially bring the virus back.”
Cohen has spent years in the central valleys of Oaxaca conducting anthropological research among the Zapotec people.
news.osu.edu
Many of them aren't going to see a vaccine for a minute.
The invader they are trying to stop is COVID-19.
For many of Mexico’s Indigenous people, poor and ignored by state and federal governments, the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is one that rests primarily with themselves, said Jeffrey Cohen, a professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University.
That means they must take steps like limiting access to their villages.
“Most of these communities only have one road in and out,” Cohen said. “So these guards, called topiles, block that road so that outsiders with the virus won’t get in – and residents won’t go to a nearby city and potentially bring the virus back.”
Cohen has spent years in the central valleys of Oaxaca conducting anthropological research among the Zapotec people.
Grasshoppers & roadblocks: Coping with COVID-19 in rural Mexico
On the outskirts of some small Indigenous communities in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, a few volunteer guards keep watch along roads blocked by makeshift barricades of chains, stones and wood.The invader they are trying to stop is COVID-19.For many of Mexico’s Indigenous people, poor and ignored...
Many of them aren't going to see a vaccine for a minute.
