Embodiment, Empathic Perception, and Spiritual Ontologies in Q'eqchi’ Maya Healing: An Ethnographic Exploration
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Social science research and theory suggests that perception can be viewed as an embodied process of social and cultural mediation. This embodied view of perception involves deep connections between the mind and body, as well as the larger social context. Previous research with Maya communities has outlined how aspects of subject and object, or self and other, can be bridged through forms of social connectedness with the family or community. This ethnographic work with Q'eqchi’ Maya healers in southern Belize details embodied and sensual aspects of therapeutic encounters, including aspects of healers embodied modes of perception or “signs” during pulse reading, manual manipulation, dreams, and prayer that mesh together and span across worlds of flesh and spirit. These embodied forms of somatic knowledge further allow us to reflect on the notions of “empathy” in Q'eqchi’ clinical encounters, challenging cognitive biases and boundaries of patients, healers, and spiritual worlds. Exploring an ontological shift away from mere material bodies and social actors opens new directions for embodiment literature and a query of spiritual ontologies. Methodological and theoretical tools to critique a spiritual/material dualism and re‐vision embodiment practices of therapeutic engagement, including their clinical significations, representations, and cultural meanings, are also explored.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.012 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".