The Defensive Strategies of the Residents of Czech and Ukrainian Origin in Ukraine to the Effects of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

Date of publishing:

1.3.2016

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.21104/CL.2016.1.05

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Abstract:

The text focuses on the theme of health care and amateur treatment in the extreme conditions of increased radiation after the explosion of the nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl power plant. It reconstructs the situation in which the population there found itself from the narratives of residents in the surroundings of the Chernobyl power plant, of which a part resettled in the Czech Republic, and analyses the relationship of the new state of affairs for folk healing. The text indicated the logic of the adaptation mechanisms of the group of people to the new circumstances and their mobilization of the cognitive potential in the conditions in which professional aid and biomedicine, which they commonly used, failed. Other than the information on the applications of specific methods and procedures, the text shows the process, how “human wisdom” on health and disease is formed and adapts to the new, in this case extreme, situation. In an individualized, complex society, these ideas are distinctly private, flexible and situational.

Keywords

medical anthropology, Ukraine, Chernobyl region, folk healing

Article Text