Negotiating healing: The politics of professionalisation amongst traditional healers in Kwazulu-Natal (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
Despite playing essential and parallel roles in the lives of patients, there exists a frictional, imbalanced relationship between traditional healers and Western doctors in South Africa. While national policy encourages a seamless system rooted in both Western science and indigenous knowledge, biomedical institutions are hesitant to accept traditional medical practices, which are based on less tangible and more spiritually-oriented elements. This research project turns to these two ideologically different entities to assess their perspectives on the roles of themselves and the other within the context of the South African health system. Responses from semi-structured interviews with seven health practitioners from KwaZulu-Natalizangoma and doctors-were the primary sources used for the knowledge acquisition process. Given that I was the lens through which these participant stories were told, my own narrative and perspectives on the subject were interwoven throughout this report. Participant narratives suggest that there is no consensus within either biomedical or traditional health domains about perceptions of the other, save for the agreement that the South African health system is disconnected with both modalities working in parallel. However, there are five overarching points of engagement throughout the practitioner-patient healing process through which the modalities directly or indirectly interact with one another and form crossdisciplinary opinions. These serve as points of discussion in this report. Elements keeping the domains separated include miscommunication, suspicion, and adherence to cultural paradigms.
Australasian Medical Journal, 2016
Background The promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007) was seen as the long awaited start-up of the traditional healing profession in South Africa. Act No 22 (2007) was strongly politically driven from the late 1960s onward. Many of these political motivators were based upon outdated cultural ideas, customs and traditions, rooted outside the modern day healthcare needs and demands of the particular population that traditional healing intends to serve. An in-depth needs and skills analysis, to test the viability and sustainability of the South African traditional healers as well as their positions and roles as health practitioners inside the formal healthcare sector, as guided and stipulated by the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007), was lacking in this early development and start-up process. This resulted in the traditional healers' present and future roles as specific healthcare practitioners being both undefined and insufficiently formulated. In addition their existing education, training, skills and abilities to compete in the formal healthcare sector were ignored. Therefore, since the promulgation of the Act in 2007, there was limited professional-development for traditional healers, to improve their immediate professionalism and thus to promote effective role-playing and management in the formal healthcare sector.
2006
The need to progress from parallel or merely tolerant health care systems towards integrated systems in countries with both traditional and western health care systems has been acknowledged globally. Underlying this acknowledgement is the need to respond to the expressed health care needs of communities. This article offers a critical reflection on national and international policies as they relate to African traditional medicine and healing in the context of the South African health care system. Key policy documents and laws pertaining to traditional healing are addressed so as to elucidate the current legal and social status of African traditional medicine and health practitioners in South Africa. The Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2004 is a breakthrough in attempts to legitimise and professionalise traditional practitioners, but this article also identifies aspects of the Act that may evoke conflict.
Planning health care in South Africa—is there a role for traditional healers?
Social Science & Medicine, 1992
Developing health policies for the 'post-apartheid' era has become an urgent task of the early 1990s in South Africa. A neglected policy issue thus far has been the question of whether traditional healers have a role to play in future health care, and if so what this should be. Rather than developing positions on these questions, this paper sets out the main debates which need the consideration of health care planners. Arguments for and against traditional healers in health care are presented, and alternatives which could be chosen are outlined. Options adopted by countries on South Africa's borders. Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland are briefly considered.
The modernisation of traditional healing in South Africa - healers, biomedicine and the state
2018
Dieses Buch beschreibt, wie HeilerInnen in verschiedenen sozialen Arenen ihre Identitäten, Praktiken, Ziele und Werte verhandeln – wie und wo sie ihre Moderne entwerfen und leben. Maßgeblich hierbei sind Prozesse von Professionalisierung, Standardisierung und Legalisierung. Es wird argumentiert, dass ein moderner Staat, der auf Rechtsstaatlichkeit und dem Prinzip der Gleichrechtlichkeit basiert, nicht anders kann, als traditionelle Medizin einem Gesetz zu unterwerfen, wobei einige ihrer Aspekte standardisiert werden. Vor dem Gesetz sind jetzt Biomedizin und traditionelle Medizin formal gleichgestellt. Der Mechanismus der Verrechtlichung ist der einzig mögliche, um Gleichheit vor dem Gesetz zu gewährleisten. Nur in der standardisierten Form eines Gesetzes kann traditionelle Medizin, vorher illegal und ausgeschlossen aus dem Wirkungsbereich des (Apartheid-)Staats, lesbar gemacht und "erkannt" werden, um dann in die Arena des neuen demokratischen Staates überführt werden zu k...
The Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007) of South Africa (Part 2: Resolutions)
Australasian Medical Journal, 2016
Background Before the promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007), there was no formal guideline or training culture to steer traditional healing in South Africa. Training was and is still mostly informal. Sometimes a new healer is trained by other traditional healers. In many cases, the traditional healer is self-taught without any learning whatsoever. Aims The present study aims to describe the various resolutions of the Act to plan, develop and manage traditional healthcare training in the future. Methods This is an exploratory and descriptive study in line with the modern historical approach of investigation and review. The emphasis is on using contemporary documentation, like articles, books and newspapers, as primary resources to reflect on the development and promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007). The findings are offered in a narrative format. Results It seems that Act No 22 (2007) was promulgated without comprehensive research and in-depth discussion on training with all the role players who have a vested interest. Conclusion It is clear that training ideals such as formal study programmes, qualified staff and institutional bodies to train and to educate future traditional healers are not immediately attainable. The nearly ten years of minimal activity to enact Act No 22 since its promulgation confirms this failure. Inexpensive and uncomplicated training paths are needed until a system can be developed. One such path is the continuation of informal in-house training with another traditional healer.