Introduction
Kia ora!
My name is Sonja, and I’m excited to be given the opportunity to travel to Chile for one month under the Prime Minister’s Scholarship to Latin America. I am half Thai, half German, grew up living in Thailand, Germany, Japan, and have been in Aotearoa for the past 10 years. I am currently doing a Research Master’s (MSc) in Psychology after graduating in May 2023 with a Bachelor of Science in psychology.
I applied for this programme as the topic, intercultural approaches to health, perfectly fits my future research interests. I hope to do research in the field of intercultural psychogerontology, specifically working with elderly communities from different cultural backgrounds and how experiences of aging and health care can be improved using different cultural and indigenous models of health.
I’m really looking forward to the field visits with the Mapuche and Ayamara indigenous peoples, to learn about their specific indigenous models of health and how these may differ or be similar to Māori and Pasifika models of health. As I volunteer at several addiction NGOs, I also hope to understand how health and drug policies as well as the lasting impacts of colonisation have influenced the lived experiences, practices, and histories of the Mapuche and Aymara indigenous people in Chile.
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Santiago, Chile: At the foothills of the Andes
Magnificent mountains that tower in the sky. This was my first impression of Santiago which reminded me of home. I find comfort and nostalgia in seeing mountains, which was the main feature in my hometown in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and in Kyoto, Japan, where I lived before moving to Aotearoa. In Santiago, the distant snow-capped…Continue…
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Exploring Chilean Healthcare, Culture, History, People, and Nature
This past week has been very full-on but equally inspiring and enlightening! We started off the week with a class on One Health, which is an approach of attaining sustainability and balance of health through the idea that the health of humans, animals, plants, nature, and ecosystems are intrinsically interconnected. This approach was very interesting…Continue…
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Understanding, Education, and Worldviews
Our third week in Santiago, Chile, began with an amazing set of lectures on Indigenous worldviews and healthcare. These lectures gave us an important overview of the historical and current contexts of the different indigenous groups in Chile, mainly focusing on the two largest groups, the Mapuche and Aymara peoples. On Tuesday, we visited the Museum…Continue…