Tinkuy: Encounter of Worlds in Intercultural Health

Abstract

The editorial argues that intercultural health should be understood as a tinkuy: a transformative encounter between diverse worlds of meaning. Drawing on Badiou’s logic of worlds, the double hermeneutics of Giddens and Edmundo Granda, and the Andean and Chinese worldviews discussed in previous editorials, it proposes that each medical system possesses its own ontology and criteria of appearance. Interculturality is not the mere addition of knowledge systems, but the co-construction of meaning through reciprocal interpretations among professionals, patients, and communities. Tinkuy reveals that human life cannot be contained within a single world and calls for building a shared horizon of care.