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BACKGROUND: Domingo de Ramos, or Palm Sunday, is a traditional Christian religious event where devotees use ramos, which are bouquets currently elaborated from palm leaves and other natural elements. In various countries, it is assumed this use of biodiversity leads to the depletion of the species involved. However, other important aspects must be considered, including the role of the people who produce and sell these ramos, the associated symbolism that has been overlooked, as well as commercial aspects that have barely been documented. This ethnobotanical study evaluates the regional-scale cultural, biological and socioeconomic aspects associated with Domingo de Ramos in central Mexico from an emic perspective. METHODS: Ethnographic and commercial information was obtained through interviews with ramos sellers in 28 municipalities in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico. We specifically sought sociodemographic data regarding the interviewees, as well as information pertaining to the ramos themselves and the palms. These aspects were explored with all of the sellers. The free list method was used to describe the uses and key elements associated with the ramos. RESULTS: Although the ramos are used for religious purposes, they have eight different uses in the daily life of the sellers, the main one being "protection." They serve to protect families, crops and animals, as well as against several diseases. Likewise, they are considered valuable for diminishing strong storms. This belief in the protection conferred by the ramos preserves pre-Hispanic concepts and is combined with their use in blessing corresponding to Western beliefs. Ramos are made from 35 introduced and native plant species and comprise a base (made of palm, wheat or sotol), a "reliquia" (palm, rosemary, chamomile and laurel) and natural or artificial flowers. The ramos sellers are mostly adult women of indigenous origin and heads of family. CONCLUSIONS: This study of Domingo de Ramos, carried out at a regional scale, highlights a syncretism that is reflected in both the symbolic importance of ramos palm and in the species used, as well as socioeconomic aspects that had not previously been identified in the study area and reflect the occurrence of complex relationships in non-timber forest products that remain little addressed.

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A massive incorporation of ultra-processed products into young children's diets worldwide and in Mexico has been documented. The aim of this study is to understand the role of sociocultural factors in principal caregivers' decisions to give a type of ultra-processed food to children under age five, called 'comida chatarra' ('junk food' in English), usually includes sugar-sweetened beverages, sweet and salty snacks, and sweet breakfast cereals. We conducted a descriptive, observational qualitative study. The research was conducted in urban and rural communities in two Mexican states. Twenty-four principal caregivers were equally distributed between the two states and types of communities. They were interviewed in person. Phenomenology underpinned this study. Results highlight the preponderant role of culture in food choices and feeding practices with junk food. Local culture influences child-feeding with ultra-processed products through social norms, knowledge, or socially constructed attitudes. These social norms, built in the context of abundant ultra-processed products and omnipresent marketing, 'justify' children's consumption of junk food. They acquire these products from the principal caregivers, family members, and neighbors, among others, who reward and pamper them. These actors also define what amount (small amounts) and when (after meals as snacks) children are given these products. Cultural factors must be considered in the development of effective public policies and programs that aim to change the culture around ultra-processed products among children and avoid their consumption.

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Introducción: el embarazo adolescente hace referencia a toda gestación que ocurre durante la adolescencia y comprende las mujeres de hasta 19 años. Irrumpe la vida de las adolescentes en momentos que no alcanzan la madurez física ni mental, con carencias nutricionales y enfermedades. Las causas son amplias y complejas, variando entre distintos grupos culturales y étnicos. Para los investigadores es importante conocer la forma de pensar de las jóvenes y madres respecto a embarazos en adolescentes, como construyen los sentidos y significaciones alrededor de embarazos a temprana edad, qué factores intervienen, de qué modo se puede educar a la población joven y adulta ante esta problemática que irrumpe con su proyecto de vida. Material y métodos: enfoque metodológico cualitativo descriptivo, con visión holística histórico-etnográfico, dado que se pretende conocer la manera de pensar de las adolescentes del estado de Guerrero en la región montaña alta ante un embarazo y las posibles causas de la misma. Resultados: el binomio revela que la falta de recursos económicos, educación, costumbres y tradiciones son las principales causas de un embarazo precoz y deserción escolar en la montaña Alta de Guerrero. Consideraciones finales: desde el término EMIC se manifiesta desacuerdo por el embarazo adolescente, se visualiza la incapacidad de las participantes para desarrollar el rol de crianza y educación, se refleja con ETIC la inmadurez física y psicológica de las adolescentes para adquirir la responsabilidad de una mujer adulta, el proyecto de vida se ve estancado en el mismo padrón de los padres.

Introduction: adolescent pregnancy refers to any gestation that occurs during adolescence and includes women up to 19 years of age. It bursts into the lives of adolescents at times when they do not reach physical or mental maturity, with nutritional deficiencies and illnesses. The causes are broad and complex, varying among different cultural and ethnic groups. For researchers, it is important to know the way of thinking of young women and mothers regarding teenage pregnancies, how they build meanings and meanings around early pregnancies, what factors intervene, how the young and adult population can be educated before this problem that bursts with his life project. Material and methods: the present investigation has a descriptive qualitative methodological approach, with a holistic historical-ethnographic vision, since it is intended to know the way of thinking of adolescents from the state of Guerrero in the high mountain region before a pregnancy and the possible causes of it. Results: the binomial reveals that the lack of economic resources, education, customs and traditions are the main causes of early pregnancy and school dropout in the High Mountain of Guerrero. Final considerations: the term EMIC shows disagreement with adolescent pregnancy, the inability of the participants to develop the role of upbringing and education, the physical and psychological immaturity of the adolescents to acquire the responsibility of an adult woman is reflected in ETIC, the life project is stagnated in the same pattern of the parents.

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BACKGROUND: The impact of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Mexico was significant but smaller than expected. Several bottlenecks related to program design and implementation have been identified that may have limited its impact; population and other contextual factors may be equally important to analyze. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to explore how sociocultural context contributes to poor nutrition in Mexico and how it shaped the acceptability, fidelity, and penetration of the fortified food and of education sessions provided by the program. METHODS: We carried out qualitative research studies in the central and southern states in urban, rural, and indigenous settings between 2001 and 2014 with different informants and by using interviews, focus group discussions, and nonparticipatory observation. We explored 4 dimensions of the sociocultural context: objective dimension (e.g., food availability and family organization), social norms and symbolic meaning related to child feeding, literacy and communication with the biomedical culture, and knowledge related to child care generally and child feeding. We generated information about the experience of the beneficiaries with fortified food and education sessions. RESULTS: Several sociocultural factors, including patriarchal family organization, high availability of nonnutritious food, social norms promoting the consumption of food in liquid form for young children, sharing of food among family members, traditional knowledge, and communication barriers with the biomedical culture, participated in shaping the poor nutrition situation, the inadequate utilization of fortified foods, and the inappropriateness of the education sessions. CONCLUSIONS: Our studies revealed the importance of local context and culture to understand the acceptance, utilization, and impact of a nutrition program and shed light on infant and child feeding practices. This knowledge is critical to strengthen program designs and ensure adequacy with the diversity of cultural and social contexts in which programs are implemented.

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El presente documento, es un ensayo reflexivo cuyo objetivo es analizar la "Investigación Cualitativa desde el enfoque Emic-Etic". Para ello, se exploran los conceptos de investigación cualitativa y la relación con los términos Emic y Etic, así como, la importancia de la misma en el quehacer científico del investigador. Se utilizó la investigación documental exhaustiva, para el análisis hermenéutico de diversas publicaciones científicas relacionadas con la temática de estudio. Se concluye, que la investigación cualitativa sustenta su visión metodológica en base al enfoque Emic-Etic, donde interactúan las versiones y opiniones de los participantes y el investigador respecto a los hechos y fenómenos de estudio, para construir la realidad de manera cooperativa.

This document is a reflexive essay whose objective is to analyze the "Qualitative Research from the Emic-Etic approach". For this, the concepts of qualitative research and the relation with the terms Emic and Etic are explored, as well as the importance of the same in the scientific work of the researcher. We used exhaustive documentary research for the hermeneutic analysis of various scientific publications related to the subject of study. It is concluded that the qualitative research supports its methodological vision based on the Emic-Etic approach, where the versions and opinions of the participants and the researcher interact with respect to the facts and phenomena of study, to construct reality in a cooperative way.

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ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE: The use of medicinal plants for treatment, cure and prevention of diseases has been described by many people since time immemorial. Because of this use, commercial and scientific interests have emerged, making it necessary to realize ethnobotanical surveys of medicinal plants species, which is important for subsequent chemical and pharmacological bioprospections. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study aimed at surveying, identifying, cataloging and documenting the medicinal plants species used in the Valley of Juruena, Northwestern Mato Grosso, Legal Amazon Brazil for the treatment of various human diseases, as well as assessed the species of interest for bioprospecting potential. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Informants were interviewed using semi-structured form to capture information on socio-demographic and ethnopharmacological data of medicinal plants such as vernacular name, uses, geographic origin, habit, form of preparation and part used. Results were analyzed using descriptive and quantitative means: indices of use-report (Ur) and informant consensus factor (ICF), for the selection of plant species with therapeutic potential. RESULTS: Three hundred and thirty two (332) plants species belonging to 90 families were reported for medicinal purposes and totaling 3973 use-reports were reported by 365 (92.9%) of the people interviewed. Asteraceae (32.2%), Fabaceae (26.7%) and Lamiaceae (24.4%) families were the most represented, with majority being species native (64.45%) to Brazil. Leaves (64.5%) were the part of the plant most used and infusion (45.7%) was the most utilized form. Gastrointestinal disorders followed by respiratory complaints topped the list of use-reports. The native or naturalized plants with the highest use reports in the order of decreasing absolute frequency per each emic-category are Cymbopogon citratus (DC.) Stapfc (104), Mentha pulegium L. (94), Arrabidaea chica (Humb. & Bonpl.) B. Verl. (97), Alternanthera brasiliana (L.) Kuntze (71), Baccharis crispa Spreng (57), Phyllanthus niruri L. (48), Gossypium barbadense L. (44), Solidago microglossa DC. (40) and Bauhinia forficata L. (20). And the most cited exotics are: Chenopodium ambrosioides L. (151), Aloe vera (L.) Burm. f., (89) and Rosmarinus officinalis L. (72). In some cases, high ICF values were found, which reflects high degree of homogeneity of consensus among informants in this region on medicinal plants. CONCLUSION: The population of Valle of Juruena makes use of a wide array of medicinal plants distributed in all use categories with predominance of those use in the treatments of gastrointestinal and respiratory ailments. The therapeutic potential of some of the species of medicinal importance extensively utilized by the population of the region have been scientifically validated, and are therefore promising prototype of new drugs. However, there are some of these species whose ethnomedicinal uses are yet to be scientifically verified and thus constitute an unexplored terrain for future biological/pharmacological studies.

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This article discusses issues relevant to the examination of personality and personality disorder in contexts, such as the Caribbean, which are under-represented in this scholarship. The article argues that because normal personality is the standard against which definitions of non-normality (and at the extreme, disorder) are derived, a crucial first step in identifying personality disorder is clear and culturally relevant definitions of normal personality. Two key conceptual perspectives on personality development and manifestation are presented, followed by a brief exploration, using the etic traits approach, of the problematic nature of any one perspective on normal personality. The article argues for the need for combined emic-etic approaches to understanding normal and non-normal personality, particularly in under-represented contexts such as the Caribbean. It ends by offering concrete suggestions on developing, in the Caribbean, programmes of research committed to these tasks.

Este artículo aborda cuestiones pertinentes al examen de la personalidad y los trastornos de la personalidad en contextos, tales como el Caribe, que están insuficientemente representadas en esta área de estudios. El artículo argumenta que como la personalidad normal es el estándar frente el cual se derivan las definiciones de no normalidad (y trastorno, finalmente), un primer paso crucial en la identificación de los trastornos de la personalidad estriba en formular definiciones claras y culturalmente relevantes de la personalidad normal. Se presentan dos perspectivas conceptuales claves en el desarrollo y la manifestación de la personalidad, seguidos por una breve exploración que recurre al enfoque de rasgos éticos (etic), de la naturaleza problemática de cualquier perspectiva de una personalidad normal. El artículo argumenta la necesidad de combinar los enfoques émicos (emic) y éticos (etic) si se quiere comprender la personalidad normal y no normal, particularmente en contextos sub-representados como es el caso del Caribe. Se concluye brindando sugerencias concretas para desarrollar programas de investigación comprometida con estas tareas en el Caribe.

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