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...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2021
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| 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
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| 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 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| 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. |
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| ISSN: | 1570-0666 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion in Africa
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340198 |