'A esa ya la destriparon': ñuu savii reproductive care practices against narratives towards the clinic in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico.

As a result of ethnographic research conducted during five months between 2019 and 2020 in the ñuu savii community called Santa Cruz Mitlatongo in Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca (Mexico), this article outlines reproductive dynamics within this Mixtec community. Against the background of the historical dispute between the so-called 'traditional' medicine and biomedicine, medical and often obstetric violence seemed to permeate the stories of women in this community, whilst the midwife was still a highly important alternative for most of the locals. This paper reflects on the sui generis notion of body and the role it plays within the processes of health/illness/assistance and draws upon the local care practices of pregnancy, birth and postpartum with the aim to address the narratives portrayed towards the clinic: a cold and unhealthy place where women become choiceless over the way they want to give birth that materialises in the rejection to C-sections and anaesthesia, procedures that cause irreversible changes to women's bodies.