Paper short abstract:

Increasing immigration restrictions in the UK have been creating barriers to the NHS for many migrants and their families, who rely on alternative forms of medicine. This paper provides a critical examination of the role of Rastafari herbalists in healing the African Caribbean diaspora in London.

Paper long abstract:

As migrant and refugee populations expand around the world, healthcare systems are under pressure to meet growing demands for increasingly multicultural needs, with limited resources. Over the past decade increasing immigration restrictions in the UK have been creating barriers to the National Health Service for many migrants and their families. Yet while much of the anthropological work on migrant health focuses on access to biomedical care, migrants’ use of alternative medicine has received less scholarly attention. This paper will provide a critical examination of the role of Rastafari herbalists in healing the African Caribbean diaspora in London, as an ethnographic example of how migrant alternative medicine provides an important medium for anthropological explorations of the biopolitics of healing.

Central to Rastafari healing is a focus on cultivating health through the consumption of plants. This includes eating an Afrocentric plant-based diet, using sacred plants in meditation and divination, and taking herbal medicines. There is also widespread lack of trust in biomedical and (other) government authorities. Due to the fluidity of Caribbean spirituality Rastafari health practices are popular with members of the African Caribbean diaspora from all religious backgrounds. To a population that includes many members with irregular immigration status and relatively high levels of mistrust in health authorities, Rastafari healers offer an alternative, holistic approach to human, community and planetary health. The patchwork ethnography that I have conducted since 2011, suggests that this approach to healing is especially suited to addressing the harms of the ‘hostile environment’ by promoting health sovereignty.