| Author workshop for forthcoming publication "Health and healing in Africa; new arenas and emerging markets" |  Printable version
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Conference | Date: |  | January 14, 2010 and January 15, 2010 | | Place: | | Room 3A06, Pieter de la Court building, Wassenaarseweg 52, Leiden. |
| Speaker(s): Akinyinka Akinyoade, Erik Bähre, Nadine Beckmann, Wouter van Beek, Christine Böhmig, Marleen Dekker, Rijk van Dijk, Dick Foeken, J. Gnimadi, Wijnand Klaver, André Leliveld, Alice Mwangi, Ken Ombongi, Sam Owuor, Ria Reis, Marcel Rutten, Robert Thornton |
Aim: present and discuss papers to be published in book.
For invitees only. Health and Healing in Africa; new arenas and emerging markets ASC/Brill African Dynamics Series, M. Dekker & R. van Dijk (eds.) Africa has a long history of the confrontation and contestation between different models of health and healing. The introduction of bio-medical care through the establishment of missionary health facilities which later became incorporated in colonial and post-colonial governmental public health services, had set in motion a contestation of existing cultural-historical practices of health and healing that were increasingly placed under scrutiny and control. Postcolonial governments fostered the emergence of traditional healers' associations to formalize traditional healing, regularize membership and governing bodies, and standardize practices and amounts to be paid for treatment. At the same time, health features prominently in the UN Millennium Development Declaration, with a strong focus on bio-medical care that almost by-passes healing practices. While the literature often euphemistically speaks of an emergent 'medical plurality' that arose with the coming of missionary and colonial medical practice, in actual fact the medical domain became an arena where different interests are playing out. One elementary process that appears crucial in the ways in which these arenas are developing is the process of monetization and commoditization. This volume explores the various aspects that are related to this process of the rise of 'markets for health and healing' in Africa. The various contributions not only explore the contradictions and problems this 'marketization' is producing for African communities, households and individuals but also the ways in which this is culturally being translated. Whereas processes of in- and exclusion, rising inequality of access, politics of distribution are being addressed the book will also devote attention to the cultural understanding of the new arenas that emerge because of the influence of new powerful actors. More information
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