Conceptual Connections Across People and Places: Some Observations on the Practice of Homeopathy in Contemporary Rural Mexico

Anthropologists have long studied cultural diffusion, sharing, or borrowing since the pioneering studies of Boas and later Kroeber. Globalization, being ideological, political, economic, cultural, and even physical, has pushed us to revamp our understandings of intercultural dynamics and knowledge transmission. This paper discusses ethnomedical pluralism in our globalized world by examining preliminary data from Western Europe and west-central Mexico. How is homeopathy being practiced in rural southwest Mexico? This research provokes questions about the relationships between ethnobotanical and medicinal plant usage in non-biomedical health therapies in disparate settings. The paper presents suggestions for in-depth study of medicinal plant usage by practitioners who share knowledge through globalized information networks, but who practice health therapies in distinct locations with distinct clienteles.