Often subtle and invisible, structural and symbolic violence play a detrimental role in the U.S food system, ranging from who picks the fruit to who eats the fruit. Structural violence, the violence inflicted on individuals through social institutions further preventing minorities from achieving basic needs and symbolic violence, the naturalization, including internalization of social dynamics while different in their meanings, are intertwined by a common denominator (Holmes, 2013:157). This common denominator, the notion of inflicting harm on those already below the playing field, with further inspection becomes more apparent. Structural and symbolic violence in the food system disproportionately affect individuals, specifically minorities
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An important contribution to the structural violence in both clinics is the concept of clinical gaze. A clinical gaze, the phenomenon where doctors and clinicians focus only on the disease and ignore the illness, in addition to stereotypes can have baleful effects. Disease is a discrete natural entity that can be clinically identified and tested by a health professional, while illness is the individual patient’s experience of sickness(Guest, 2013:622). By ignoring the migrant workers illness, clinicians further the structural violence that these migrants experience. For example, in the Skagit Valley, clinicians were seen to continually ignore the illness and other possible factors contributing to their pain. This was the case for Abelino and his knee, Crescencio and his headaches, along with Bernardo and his stomach pain (Holmes, 2013: 117). While all three individuals experience clinical gaze and stereotypes, Crescencio’s headaches stand out significantly in this regard. Crescencio’s headaches were developed after he had been called racist names and treated unfairly at the farm (Holmes, 2013:132). Concerned with what effects the headaches might have, Crescencio was eager to see someone who could help, a physician. After seeing multiple physicians in the US and a traditional Triqui healer with no …show more content…
In San Miguel, most Triqui individuals receive care through the federally funded Centro de Salud in their home towns(Holmes, 2013:144). This federal clinic was lack of a better term sort of a mess. The clinic often took advantage of the local village people, mostly the women enrolled in the federal Oportunidades program, and often was not open during the designated drop in hours (Holmes, 144). Often, the health problems that the Triqui faced daily were blamed on their culture and customs, or rather their behavior. The blame was never put on the social structures that were at work such as “poverty, neoliberal corporate capitalism, or social and economic inequalities” (Holmes, 2013: 146). Again, and again, either a nurse or a doctor would make assumptions about the daily lives of the Triqui, their cleanliness and their malnourishment, even though the criteria in which malnourishment was measured did not apply well to “indigenous people” (Holmes, 2013:147, 149). With no respect for the Triqui or their job, many doctors and nurses were perceived as inadequate to serve the Triqui people’s needs. Those working in the federal clinic, nurses or doctors, showed a “lack of awareness of social contexts similar to that described among clinicians in the United States”(Holmes, 2013:149). And just like in the United States, nurses in the clinic “discounted the suffering of the Triqui migrants”(Holmes, 2013:150). Even though,
An important contribution to the structural violence in both clinics is the concept of clinical gaze. A clinical gaze, the phenomenon where doctors and clinicians focus only on the disease and ignore the illness, in addition to stereotypes can have baleful effects. Disease is a discrete natural entity that can be clinically identified and tested by a health professional, while illness is the individual patient’s experience of sickness(Guest, 2013:622). By ignoring the migrant workers illness, clinicians further the structural violence that these migrants experience. For example, in the Skagit Valley, clinicians were seen to continually ignore the illness and other possible factors contributing to their pain. This was the case for Abelino and his knee, Crescencio and his headaches, along with Bernardo and his stomach pain (Holmes, 2013: 117). While all three individuals experience clinical gaze and stereotypes, Crescencio’s headaches stand out significantly in this regard. Crescencio’s headaches were developed after he had been called racist names and treated unfairly at the farm (Holmes, 2013:132). Concerned with what effects the headaches might have, Crescencio was eager to see someone who could help, a physician. After seeing multiple physicians in the US and a traditional Triqui healer with no …show more content…
In San Miguel, most Triqui individuals receive care through the federally funded Centro de Salud in their home towns(Holmes, 2013:144). This federal clinic was lack of a better term sort of a mess. The clinic often took advantage of the local village people, mostly the women enrolled in the federal Oportunidades program, and often was not open during the designated drop in hours (Holmes, 144). Often, the health problems that the Triqui faced daily were blamed on their culture and customs, or rather their behavior. The blame was never put on the social structures that were at work such as “poverty, neoliberal corporate capitalism, or social and economic inequalities” (Holmes, 2013: 146). Again, and again, either a nurse or a doctor would make assumptions about the daily lives of the Triqui, their cleanliness and their malnourishment, even though the criteria in which malnourishment was measured did not apply well to “indigenous people” (Holmes, 2013:147, 149). With no respect for the Triqui or their job, many doctors and nurses were perceived as inadequate to serve the Triqui people’s needs. Those working in the federal clinic, nurses or doctors, showed a “lack of awareness of social contexts similar to that described among clinicians in the United States”(Holmes, 2013:149). And just like in the United States, nurses in the clinic “discounted the suffering of the Triqui migrants”(Holmes, 2013:150). Even though,