Bodies, politics, and African healing : the matter of maladies in Tanzania / Stacey A. Langwick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Langwick, Stacey Ann.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Traditional medicine--Tanzania.

Traditional medicine.

Medical care--Tanzania.

Medical care.

Medicine, African Traditional.

Tanzania.

Anthropology, Cultural.

Medical Subjects:

Medicine, African Traditional.

Tanzania.

Anthropology, Cultural.

Physical Description:

xiii, 300 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2011]

Summary:

This subtle and powerful ethnography examines African healing and its relationship to medical science. Slacey 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. Book jacket.

Contents:

A short genealogy of traditional medicine

Witchcraft, oracles, and native medicine

Making Tanzanian traditional medicine

Hailing traditional experts

Healers and their intimate becomings

Traditional birth attendants as institutional evocations

Healing matters

Alternative materialities

Interferences and inclusions

Shifting existences, or being and not-being.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780253355270

0253355273

9780253222459

0253222451

OCLC:

682072155