Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.

• Date: 01 January 2005
• Author: Jain, Eisha
• Published date: 01 January 2005
• Author: Jain, Eisha

Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor by Paul Farmer Publisher: University of California Press (2003) Price: $27.50

Pathologies of Power (1) opens with Paul Farmer's account of a visit to a refugee camp in the highlands of Guatemala. Farmer uses the setting of the camp as a way of illustrating a larger point about the ideology that ought to guide health care. He contrasts two approaches to health care reform that have played out in the camp. One initiative, developed in Guatemala City, involves a series of refugee rehabilitation workshops on themes such as gender sensitivity. The other proposal, developed by the refugees, involves exhuming mass graves where genocide victims have been buried by the Guatemalan army. The survivors tell Farmer that the dead have been "buried with their eyes open" and cannot know peace until they receive a proper burial. Farmer sees this project as a valuable way for health workers to act based on the voices and interests of the refugees. In contrast, he rejects the workshops as a misguided attempt to change the minds and culture of the refugees, and to advance "an agenda imported from capital cities ... from do-gooder organizations ... from U.S. universities with the 'right' answers to ... every question." (2)

Farmer's account of the Guatemalan camp reveals much about his goals and his...