Brazilian Women's Filmmaking: From Dictatorship to Democracy. By Leslie L. Marsh. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. Pp. 248. Notes. Bibliography, Index. $85.00 cloth; $28.00 paper.
Harvey's work is not meant to be a study of the ethnomedical system itself. Rather, it is an excellent study of language use in health care. The emphasis is on the social relations and communication in medical encounters and how they affect resource utilization and healing, with the aim of uncovering the cultural and linguistic factors that complicate cross-cultural medical care, rather than revealing Maya medical beliefs and practices. Nevertheless, more detail on die syncretism reflected in and practiced by Miriam, the nurse and Maya healer would have sharpened the analysis. Although he shows that her healer role is considered by the Maya to be a divine or a spiritual gift mandated from birth, and her manner of communication during the consultation follows a Maya pattern rather than a biomedical one, the analysis would better illustrate this syncretism if there were more information concerning what it is about her beliefs or practices diat derives from her training as a nurse vs. her training as an ajkun.