Bodies, politics, and African healing
Subtitle: the matter of maladies in Tanzania
By: Stacey A. Langwick
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Bloomington
Language: eng
Number of pages: 300
ISBN-13: 9780253355270; 9780253222459
Subjects: Medical care; Traditional medicine; African Traditional Medicine; Cultural Anthropology
Description: "This subtle and powerful ethnography examines African healing and its relationship to medical science. Stacey A. Langwick investigates the practices of healers in Tanzania who confront the most intractable illnesses in the region, including AIDS and malaria. She reveals how healers generate new therapies and shape the bodies of their patients as they address devils and parasites, anti-witchcraft medicine, and child immunization. Transcending the dualisms between tradition and science, culture and nature, belief and knowledge, Langwick tells a new story about the materiality of healing and postcolonial politics. This important work bridges postcolonial theory, science, public health, and anthropology"--Back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-290) and index.
Table of contents: title: A short genealogy of traditional medicine; title: Witchcraft, oracles, and native medicine; title: Making Tanzanian traditional medicine; title: Hailing traditional experts; title: Healers and their intimate becomings; title: Traditional birth attendants as institutional evocations; title: Healing matters; title: Alternative materialities; title: Interferences and inclusions; title: Shifting existences, or being and not-being.