Selling healing : creative arts and health communication in Ghana / Ama de-Graft Aikins, University College London.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aikins, Ama de-Graft, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communication in medicine--Ghana.

Communication in medicine.

Arts--Health aspects--Ghana.

Arts.

Visual communication--Ghana.

Visual communication.

Medicine and art--Ghana.

Medicine and art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 205 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

The intersections between arts, creativity and health are of significant importance in the humanities and social sciences. Arts and health research, for example, suggests that the arts offer participatory and transformational alternatives to traditional health communication. However, concepts and methods are predominantly informed by Global North research, and critical insights from arts traditions elsewhere remain to be fully integrated into common models. Ghana offers a unique case study for examining local and global dynamics in arts-based health communication, because of the country's rich art traditions as well as its place in global history and in the global imagination. Healing art forms like music and sculpture have evolved through intentional cross-cultural borrowings, as well as through changes imposed through slavery, colonialism and post-colonial political systems. Selling Healing tells a polyvocal story of how Ghanaian art forms intersect with health, illness and healing, inviting a re-imagining of health communication in global health.

Contents:

"The gods may be considered patrons of the arts"

If you sell your sickness you get a cure

Mr. Wise and Mr. Foolish go to Town

All die (no) be die

Food is medicine, food is poison

Out of your mind

We cannot eat stories

Colonial virus

"In Ghana here, you have to be creative to move ahead."

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 14 Nov 2025).

ISBN:

1-009-24441-8

1-009-24444-2

1-009-24445-0