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- Convenors:
-
Mirjam de Bruijn
(Leiden University)
Karin van Bemmel (African Studies Centre Leiden/Leiden University Medical Centre)
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- Stream:
- Health
- Location:
- Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
An exploration of what medical humanities can offer in view of narratives that address institutions and larger collective formations. Focus is put on how popular concerns about the dying/reviving of institutions dealing with health and wellbeing are expressed in creative, artful and innovative ways.
Long Abstract:
Medical humanities is an increasingly important field of study. However, there is need to rethink medical humanities from a perspective that not only foregrounds the humanities' approach to individual narratives of illness and misfortune. We argue that an expansion is required of what medical humanities can offer in view of narratives that address institutions and larger collective formations. In particular, we focus on dying and reviving institutions: those that increasingly lose value in society or (re)gain popularity. What do people invent to replace/reshape these dying institutions and rebuild institutions that work?
The study of the narratives of these institutions (e.g. public hospitals, private clinics, traditional healers) means that new connections have to be established in terms of exploration and understanding; new connections across methods, artful expressions, humanities-cum-social science critical theory, as well as connections between individual and collective experiences. However, medical humanities also deal with disruptions; the arts may disrupt economic and technical management and intervention in disease, may unsettle common practices of health and well-being, and may question established (medical) authorities.
We welcome proposals that deal with the question how popular concerns about the dying and reviving of institutions dealing with health and well-being are being expressed in creative, artful and innovative ways. How can we understand these expressive concerns about changes and disruptions of such institutions, how do they bespeak a collective narrative about them, and how do these expressions connect with or disrupt political or economic structures that manage health and well-being in African societies?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the material object ilizi (Swahili for charm) as a lens on health and a way to examine the state of the institution of traditional healing in Dodoma (Tanzania). Young adults in this growing urban environment have a seemingly complex relation with ilizi and traditional healing.
Paper long abstract:
This paper has the material object of ilizi (the Swahili word for charm) as a focus point. Through the stories about that object from young adults, religious leaders and traditional healers (who make the object) in relation to the conditions of the urban environment of Dodoma, Tanzania, traditional healing in the city might be seen as a dying institution.
The city of Dodoma is growing, both in number of people as in size. Young adults have access to many facilities with regards to education, religion and health care and mention those aspects as a reason not to go to the traditional healer. I would like to add the negative connotation towards healers as a fourth reason why traditional healing might be a dying institution. But there is an apparent complex relation between the young adults and traditional healers. Young adults say they don't use objects like ilizi, but do know stories about them. On the other hand the healers interviewed indicate that young adults do come to visit them, for different health issues and misfortunes like stolen property, getting a job or wanting to get pregnant. The secretiveness of the use of the object might be the reason why it is easier to find the healers in the outskirts of the city than in the city centre.
By focusing on the narratives about the material object of ilizi from different angles we can study the seemingly dying institution of traditional healing in the urban environment.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines narratives/constructions surrounding health institutions in Ghana from a literary/cultural perspective. It proposes that MH scholarship in Ghana will illuminate the connections/disruptions between health provision and collective constructions about health institutions.
Paper long abstract:
Medical Humanities as a viable field of study continues to expand in many parts of the world, and has much recently taken root in some parts of Africa. However, in Ghana, it is almost non-existent as a conceptual area of study. While much health-related study has been done in disciplines related to the social sciences, to public health, or to linguistics, little or nothing has been done in the area of literature or the arts, especially with respect to critical analyses of narratives that shape, inform or depict peoples' notions about health and health institutions. Consequently, how a recently constructed well-resourced, state-of-the-art health facility becomes a metaphor for conveying mistrust in the healthcare system, instead of catering to health needs, attracts very little or no scholarly attention. Neither is there any dialectical interrogation of how seeking medical attention from a long-established teaching hospital becomes synonymous with grave illness and even inevitable death. This paper discusses the need to examine these and other health-related narratives and constructions by erasing long-held misconceptions, even in the academy in Ghana, of science research as markedly different from research in the arts, including literature. It proposes that promoting scholarship in the medical humanities in higher institutions in Ghana will facilitate a greater understanding of the connections and/or disruptions between health provision and collective metaphorical constructions of the value of health institutions in the country.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the relationship between the cultures of illness disclosure among presidents in Africa and normative traditional rules on the body of the traditional ruler.
Paper long abstract:
As chronic non- communicable diseases increase in Africa, understanding cultures of disclosure has become important because of their implications on the psychological and physiological wellbeing of the patient, stigma alleviation, and for general health promotion. This paper explores the relationship between the cultures of illness disclosure among presidents in Africa and normative traditional rules on the body of the traditional ruler. We propose that traditional exclusionary norms that pertain to the ruler's body redefine constructions of contagion and disability in ways that transcend biomedical constructions, and include non-communicable diseases. We argue that relics of such traditional norms, the hierarchical ordering of bodies, and the traditional symbolism of the ruler's body are still entrenched in modern African societies, and have been extended to recent exclusionary debates on some African leaders. The findings suggest that such traditional rudiments remarkably influence disease disclosure among leaders in Africa.
Paper short abstract:
The Elewe-Omo are the primray health care giver in the traditional Yoruba Society. the emergence of the missionaries subdued this practice. However, this was just for a period, as the practice has risen with high hope of spread beyond the immediate environment.
Paper long abstract:
The emergence of the colonial masters and the missionaries in Africa discouraged some practices which were either considered idolatry or primitive. Prominent among these was the health care system of the Yoruba people of the Southwestern Nigeria.Elewe-Omo were the professionals who could diagnose and prescribe appropriately in the traditional Yoruba society.They acted as midwives to pregnant women in the society. women dominate this filed of practice among the Yoruba people. They were specialist in Community health. This skill/profession was sent to its grave with the ascendancy of western orthodox medicine. With the recent disocurse and discoveries in organic matters as it concerns health issues as against synthetic health facilities, the Elewe-Omo have not only revived the practice, but have also garnered more knowledge in the profession.This paper records the activities in Nigeria, using the Yoruba examples, and the level of support and legislation. it also records stages of inclusion of herbal practice in the curricular of relevant disciplines in Nigerian institutions.