Healing Borders and the Mapping of Referral Systems: Across the Territorial Spaces of African Healing Shrines, Christian Prayerhouses, and Hospitals

The outbreak of COVID 19 and other global pandemics readily shows the importance of ethno-cultural channels of communication. However, modern discourses on medical referrals have narrowly focused their attention on the diverse challenges of referral services in biomedical establishments, but have ge...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Michael, Matthew (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2021
In: Journal of religion in Africa
Year: 2021, Volume: 51, Issue: 1/2, Pages: 1-26
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Nigeria / Ghana / Recommendation / Network / Medical facility / Alternative medicine / Healer
IxTheo Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
AG Religious life; material religion
BS Traditional African religions
CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations
KBN Sub-Saharan Africa
Further subjects:B Christian prayerhouses
B Hospitals
B Covid-19
B Referral
B medical pluralism
B African healing shrines
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Summary:The outbreak of COVID 19 and other global pandemics readily shows the importance of ethno-cultural channels of communication. However, modern discourses on medical referrals have narrowly focused their attention on the diverse challenges of referral services in biomedical establishments, but have generally ignored the cultural mechanics and religious dynamism in the contemporary operations of ethno-medical referrals in sub-Saharan Africa. Departing from these studies, the present paper underscores the active networks of referrals in African healing shrines that appropriate the diverse resources and expertise of different healing spaces in their treatments of sick clients. Using an ethnographical approach, the paper investigates the mechanics of ethno-medical referrals from the perspectives of more than 250 sick clients in African healing shrines, over 50 practitioners in ethno-medical shrines, several doctors and nurses, and church workers/Christian healers in Nigeria and Ghana respectively. The findings of this research suggest that there are lively networks of referrals between African healing shrines, hospitals, and Christian healing/prayerhouses, which dramatically turned these diverse healing spaces into an animated transborder space of creative negotiation.
ISSN:1570-0666
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religion in Africa
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340198