Paper short abstract:

This work explores how perceptions of the risks of water-related diseases and endogenous resilience practices are constructed on a daily basis around hydro-agricultural dams in Burkina Faso

Paper long abstract:

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected by climate change. In this region, many countries face food insecurity problems caused by drought. In Burkina Faso, where rural populations are confronted with such crises, decision-makers have adopted policies to build large hydro-agricultural dams in order to alleviate water shortages. The aim is to provide farmers with water for irrigation. While these dams are said to help solve the food problems of local populations, they are also the source of numerous health risks (S. Kibret et al., 2019). The aim of this research was to identify perceptions of disease risk among populations living near the Soum dam, a fairly recent infrastructure and one of the most important in Burkina Faso. The aim was to understand how these populations themselves construct the relationship between water and disease in their environment. In other words, how local residents think about the causes of water-related illnesses in their living and working environment. It is also a question of noting how they name them, and the endogenous resilience strategies they implement on a daily basis to combat these threats. The aim of this research was to deconstruct the concepts of "risk perception" and "resilience". The results of this work are the fruit of socio-anthropological research involving individual interviews, focus groups, informal interviews and participant observation.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how Africans employed indigenous healing methods in southern Rhodesia to treat venereal diseases, particularly syphilis. It analyses the indigenous methods and techniques used by Africans in combatting syphilis.

Paper long abstract:

This study explores the social history of venereal diseases among Africans during the colonial period. Focusing on Syphilis, this study shows how European settlers viewed Africans as 'sick and diseased' people who were responsible for the spread of venereal diseases in the colony. This notion stemmed from Europeans' general perception that Africa was a 'sick continent.' These perceptions influenced how Europeans related to Africans and how they dealt with the prevalence of diseases in the colony. However, the study argues that Africans were not passive victims of venereal diseases and mere recipients of state-imposed health interventions in their communities. Instead, they had their understanding when it came to these venereal diseases and developed indigenous techniques to manage, prevent, and treat these diseases. Using archival records, this study examines how the migratory labour system contributed to the high incidence of syphilis among Africans in urban, mining and rural areas and how these Africans used indigenous knowledge systems to prevent, limit and treat diseases in their respective societies. By examining African experiences with venereal diseases, this study aims to provide a nuanced understanding of how cultural and indigenous beliefs influenced Africans' understanding of syphilis and how they controlled it in their societies.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to formulate and elevate a new counter discourse of "the healthy Africa(n)" as an antithesis to the discourse of “the sick Africa(n)” which is epitomised by Michael Gelfand’s 1943 colonial medical guidebook – and suffuses aspects of world thinking about health in an African context.

Paper long abstract:

Although it continues to linger and cause havoc like a drug resistant bug, the colonial and international discourse of Africa as a sick continent blighted by pestilence and famine has long been discredited. It is therefore not the aim of this paper to resuscitate this shibboleth of colonial medicine and kill it again for scholarly amusement; instead, the aim is to begin to fill a gap that has remained open in critiques of colonial medical discourses by formulating and elevating a new discourse of the healthy Africa(n). What are the healthy habits of Africans? How does a healthy and nourished African child look like? What concepts of health are African in origin? What discourses of a healthy Africa(n) exist in the literature?

The aim of the paper is not to produce a “merry Africa” essentialist discourse as a counter to the overly negative image of the continent’s health profile that has been predominant from the era of imperial tropical medicine, through colonial medicine, to postcolonial and global health which have carried the vestiges of the past. Instead, it seeks to paint a dynamic picture that acknowledges the health challenges of the continent but, most importantly, emphasises the healthy aspects of the continent’s profile which are often overshadowed by images of deprivation, disease, and a dark continent.

The paper will draw from historical and contemporary examples to argue for a more assertive alternative profile.

Paper short abstract:

This project examines the discourse on illness and dying in the context of Morocco in an attempt to provide more nuanced accounts of perceptions of dying of disease. In this paper, I focus on Morocco where religion and science are negotiated in an attempt to discriminate between good and bad death.

Paper long abstract:

This project rehearses the famous couplet of good and bad death in relation to dying of sickness in Morocco. Relying on fieldwork in the city of Fez and media analysis, the contextualized nuances of dying of health issues demonstrates a tug-of-war with the traditional construction of such polarity. In this paper, reference to major western works on Thanatology is crucial as, for the west, which dominates the field of Death Studies, dying of a disease is conceived of as bad death; it connotes the failure of the medical system and the fallibility of science. In the context of Morocco, where Islam is the faith shared by the majority, sickness followed by dying acquires different meanings. This paper capitalizes on the COVID-19 pandemic as a key moment that has underscored alternative discourses on sickness and dying. Dying of COVID-19 is indicative of martyrdom, which culminates in a good death. COVID-infected corpses were not allowed proper Islamic post-death rituals, namely the washing. Such denial constitutes a health necessity, yet, is translated into an affront to tradition. Nonetheless, despite this abrupt shift, the victim retains the status of martyr for the mourners who submit to God’s decree. In this respect, science and religion coexist in a constellation of attitudes that negotiate the power of medicine and the supremacy of God’s will. This project then crystallizes an ability to piece together diverse discourses on sickness and dying by zooming in on Morocco as a lesser explored area in the field of Death Studies.

Paper short abstract:

My paper contrasts African concepts and Western discourse on mental illness expressed in Akwaeke Emezi‘s „Freshwater“ (Ogbanje vs. Dissociative Identity Disorder). It focuses on the complex connections between illness and stigma, illness and intersectionality, as well as illness and autonomy.

Paper long abstract:

In their autobiographical novel Freshwater (2018), non-binary Nigerian-American writer Akwaeke Emezi portray their main character as a group of personalities who alternately take control of the main character‘s body and mind. While many Western critics read Emezi‘s character as a person diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), African scholars put the Ogbanje concept at the center of their critique, thus associating these personality states with the divine rather than with mental illness. My presentation uses these strands of critique to explore how mental illness is both shaped by cultural contexts and by (academic) discourses. While, in a specific context, unconventional acting or transgression of norms may put a person at risk, in another context the same behaviour may invoke protection.

I will also critically examine the role of Psychiatric Associations: while some interpret DID as a failure to integrate various aspects of identity, memory, and consciousness into a single self, others underline that DID is a powerful strategy of the human mind to cope with severe traumata. My paper thus adresses the complex connections between illness and stigma, illness and intersectionality (gender, race) as well as illness and autonomy. This can also be traced to Emezi themselves, who, as a non-binary, plural, African immigrant writer addressing issues of conflict and trauma might represent the „African sick“. Yet, they have established a strong career, financially as well as intellectually, that contrasts with the vulnerability they express in their writing.

Paper short abstract:

20th-century clinical photographs of oesophageal cancer are shaped by the politics of knowledge surrounding the camera, the clinic, and the colony in South Africa. Despite an air of universal science, the images evidence the scopic regime of medicine in the settler-colonial Cape.

Paper long abstract:

This paper outlines how historical clinical photographs produced in South Africa are shaped by the politics of knowledge surrounding medicine, photography, and conceptions of racial difference. By addressing the power-dynamics imbedded in an encounter with the camera, the clinic, and the colony writ large, it sets out to illustrate why and how images of this kind cannot be disconnected from concerns of exploitation and exposure. The paper situates this argument in the specific settler-colonial and apartheid context of twentieth-century Cape Town in which a large collection of photographic material was produced within South Africa’s first medical school. While drawing on an ethos of universal science, the clinical photographs can be seen to offer evidence of the racialized logics of medicine in South Africa as well as the structuring of sight at the Old Groote Schuur Hospital (the city’s main public and teaching hospital from 1938 to 1988). By attending to a particular disease case study—that of oesophageal cancer—the paper demonstrates how race served as a lens through which the clinical gaze of the country was focused.

Paper short abstract:

The study proposes the term “African Medical Humanities” as an African-centric paradigm through which to explore the depiction of indigenous Nigerian therapeutics in creative works such as Akwaeke Emezi's Fresh Water (2018) and Helen Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl (2005).

Paper long abstract:

The significance of adopting an African-centric approach when examining traditional West African medicine and cultural practices related to healthcare and the body cannot be overstated. In the fields of humanities and social sciences, there has been a tendency to prioritise Euro-centric scholarship at the expense of exploring the belief systems of people of African descent. However, recognising the West African indigenous worldview is a crucial first step in challenging Euro-American epistemological dominance and enabling a more comprehensive analysis of healthcare practices.

Against this backdrop, the present research proposes the term “African Medical Humanities” with the aim of deconstructing Euro-centric universalism and offering an alternative framework for studying health-related phenomena in sub-Saharan African creative writing. Specifically, the analysis will focus on the works of two Nigerian contemporary writers by examining the Ogbanje/Abiku (spirit child) motif in relation to mental health and traditional African therapeutics.

The study will pay particular attention to Helen Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl (2005) and Akwaeke Emezi's Fresh Water (2018), investigating how these works address mental health and personhood within indigenous therapeutics among West African societies. Through this analysis, the present contribution demonstrates how spirituality is deeply embedded in traditional healthcare practices, thereby reflecting the importance of adopting an African-centric approach to understanding healthcare and the body in West African societies.

KEY WORDS: Nigerian Literature, African Medical Humanities, Narrative Medicine, Mental Health, Abiku, Ogbanje