Bodies, Politics, and African Healing. The matter of maladies in Tanzania

Author
Stacey A. Langwick

Publisher
Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Year of publication
2011

ISBN
978-0-253-35527-0

OPAC

Abstract
This subtle and powerful ethnography examines African healing and its relationship to medical science. Stacey A. Langwick investigates the practices of healers in Tanzania who confront the most intractable illnesses in the region, including AIDS and malaria. She reveals how healers generate new therapies and shape the bodies of their patients as they address devils and parasites, anti-witchcraft medicine, and child immunization. Transcending the dualisms between tradition and science, culture and nature, belief and knowledge, Langwick tells a new story about the materiality of healing and postcolonial politics. This important work bridges postcolonial theory, science, public health, and anthropology.

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