Letting the Air Out: Aire as an Empty Signifier in Oaxacan Understandings of Illness

Abstract

"Air (aire, also aigre) in the body" is a frequent explanation of illness according to the traditional medical beliefs in Mexico. Anthropologists have generally scrutinized aire in the context of other common folk illnesses treated by traditional healers (curanderas). However, drawing on my research in the communities of Northern Oaxaca I suggest that aire occupies a more distinct position in the folk medical cosmology than it has usually been credited with. This distinction rests on the notion's exceptional ambivalence and openness to multiple interpretations. "Air" is recurred to as the cause of illness mainly in situations where every other explanation, either "traditional" or "biomedical," seems to be inadequate. The physical properties of air-its transparency, invisibility, apparent immateriality, near omnipresence, and virtual "nothingness"-render it a suitable explanation of the last resort. Local understandings of what aire "is" are often vague and elusive, and in many respects the term functions in folk medical discourse as an "empty signifier."

Keywords: Aire; Empty signifier; Mexico; Oaxaca; illness.