Working with Spirit

Experiencing Izangoma Healing in Contemporary South Africa

Inbunden, Engelska, 2008

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In the current model of health dispensation in South Africa there are two major paradigms, the spirit-inspired tradition of izangoma sinyanga and biomedicine. These operate at best in parallel, but more often than not are at odds with one another. This book, based on the author’s personal experience as a practitioner of traditional African medicine, considers the effects of the absence of spirit in biomedicine on collaborative relationships. Given the unprecedented challenge of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country, the author suggests that more cooperation is vital. Taking a critical look at the role of anthropology in this endeavor, she proposes the development of a “language of spirit” by means of which the spirit-inspired aetiology of izangoma sinyanga may be made comprehensible to academic scientists and applicable to medical interventions. The author discusses white izangoma in the context of current debates on healing and hybridity and insists that there exists a powerful role for izangoma in the realm of societal healing. Above all, the book constitutes a start in what the author hopes will develop into an ongoing intellectual conversation between traditional African healing, academe, and biomedicine in South Africa.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2008-05-01
Mått152 x 229 x 19 mm
Vikt508 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieEpistemologies of Healing
Antal sidor184
FörlagBerghahn Books
ISBN9781845454760

Tillhör följande kategorier

Medicin: allmänt inom Medicin
Antropologi inom Samhälle och politik

Jo Thobeka Wreford accepted a community architectural post in Zimbabwe in 1992, where she met the Xhosa healer with whom, in 2001, she graduated as a sangoma. She now divides her time between her healing practice and research in sangoma and HIV/AIDS at the University of Cape Town. In 2004 she was awarded a Research Scholarship with the AIDS and Society Research Unit (ASRU), Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) at the University of Cape Town.

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionGoing about it - Fields, sources and contributorsStructuring the bookChapter 1. Conversations in anthropological theory and methodActs of collaboration - Izangoma and HIV/AIDS interventions in East and Southern AfricaExperiential practice, reflexivity and a language for spiritMethodological issues and the notion of mimetic ethnographyChapter 2. On the Question of AncestorsConceiving ancestorsThe sacred pragmatism of Izangoma SinyangaChapter 3. Biomedicine and Izangoma sinyanga: Fundamental misunderstandings and avoidable mistakesMedical disjuncts in the time of AIDSProfessionalizing Izangoma – Government, HIV/AIDS, and the ‘traditional’ in South African medicineIndigenous discovery, pharmaceutical profitFurther contestations and uncomfortable predicamentsChapter 4. On ‘Being Called’ (Ukubiswa)Sickness and diagnosisAnswering ‘the call’Ways of seeingDreams and stuffChapter 5. Graduation (Goduswa) and ancestral evidencesChapter 6. What got into you? Ancestral en-trancementWhat got into you?Not always bad: the literature of tranceHandling SpiritChapter 7. "Long-nosed Izangoma" and relationship issues in the Izangoma communityWorking with the whiteLong-nosed Izangoma?A place for the white?Chapter 8. Witchcraft and Izangoma Sinyanga in the time of AIDSVirtually modern, actually realUmbilical relationships and questions of motiveTreating AIDS, treating witchcraftPostscript and Final thoughtsGlossary of terms and acronymsReferencesIndex