The Embodiment of Traditional Partería in the Colombian Pacific Region

Abstract

A Traditional Partera refers to a woman who assists, by traditional practices, women during gestation, birth, and reproductive life, aside of the formal health care system. Their practice, Traditional Partería, is considered a key ancestral cultural component in marginalized communities in Colombia. A comprehensive description of the essence of Colombian Traditional Partería is currently missing, and this practice is facing the loss of its body of knowledge. Here, we describe the essence of being a Colombian Traditional Partera. Eight Traditional Parteras participated in phenomenological interviews and body maps focused on their embodied conscious experience of being a Traditional Partera in Colombia. Seventeen general meaning units were identified and grouped in three embodied components (Head, Heart, and Hands) related to practice, knowledge, feelings, perceptions, context, and culture. We discuss philosophical reflections and implications of knowing other’s world perspectives, describing a sensitive triad central in the Traditional Partería practice.