Bodies, Politics, and African Healing : The Matter of Maladies in Tanzania
Bodies, Politics, and African Healing : The Matter of Maladies in Tanzania
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Author(s): Langwick, Stacey A.
ISBN No.: 9780253355270
Pages: 320
Year: 201106
Format: Trade Cloth (Hard Cover)
Price: $ 79.58
Status: Out Of Print

Anthropologist Langwick's fieldwork in the town of Newala in southeastern Tanzania started in 1998. Shortly after arriving, the author had the good fortune to establish an association with Binti Dadi, a Muslim woman healer, and Mzee Kalimaga, a Christian male healer. For ten months during the initial field stay in 1998-99, Langwick (Cornell) apprenticed with Binti Dadi, even being called 'Binti Dadi mdogo'--little Binti Dadi. She returned to Newala for a couple of months in 2002 and 2003. She carried out her research in KiSwahili and provides a short glossary that translates and clarifies key concepts. A brief prologue sets the scene for the body of the discussion, which covers such topics as witchcraft, oracles, and native medicine; making Tanzanian traditional medicine; healers and their intimate becomings; and traditional birth attendants as institutional evocations. Part 3, 'Healing Matters, ' explores alternative materialities, interferences and inclusions, and shifting existences, or being and not-being. There is a short conclusion on postcolonial ontological politics and a brief epilogue incorporating Langwick's newly born daughter into this 'family.


' Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty/professionals. -- ChoiceB. M. du Toit, emeritus, University of Florida, February 2012--B. M. du Toit, emeritus, University of Florida (01/01/2012).


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