Bodies, Politics, and African Healing : The Matter of Maladies in Tanzania

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. (2012) Music and texts: an overview of the sources: A general description of the air ; The publications ; The composers ; Publications by Lambert, Bacilly, La Barre, and Le Camus: a description ; The song texts ; Poetic structure ; Style or elocution: figurative language and poetic syntax ; Poetry and rhetoric -- Rhetoric and meaning in the seventeenth-century French air: Seventeenth-century French sources on rhetoric and music ; Persuading the passions -- Musical representations of the primary passions: The primary passions ; The agitated passions ; The modest passions ; The neutral passion: Le contentement ; Summary -- Setting the texts: Painful love ; Bittersweet love ; Enticing love ; Joyous love ; Summary -- Form and style: the organization and function of expressions, syntax, and rhetorical figures: Form (disposition) ; The organization of expressions in short airs ; The organization of expressions in long airs ; Form in single-strophe airs ; The rhetorical sections of a piece: their function and expression ; Style (elocution): poetic structure, punctuation, and rhetorical figures -- L'art du chant: performing French airs: À haute voix: the importance of orality ; The art of proper singing: tone and style ; Ornamentation ; The pronunciation of seventeenth-century French ; Syllabic quantity ; Tempo ; Le mouvement ; Repeats ; Basso continuo accompaniment -- Salon culture and the mid-seventeenth-century French air: The French air and conversation ; Musical seductions ; Galanterie and the air: undercurrents of eroticism and lessons of morality ; Women singing airs as men -- The late-seventeenth-century air and the rhetoric of distraction ; The air after 1670 ; Songs and the rhetoric of distraction ; Pleasure, airs, and the new rhetoric ; The legacy of Lambert, Bacilly, Le Camus, and La Barre 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--back Cover. A Short Genealogy Of Traditional Medicine -- Witchcraft, Oracles, And Native Medicine -- Making Tanzanian Traditional Medicine -- Hailing Traditional Experts -- Healers And Their Intimate Becomings -- Traditional Birth Attendants As Institutional Evocations -- Healing Matters -- Alternative Materialities -- Interferences And Inclusions -- Shifting Existences, Or Being And Not-being. Stacey A. Langwick. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Bodies, Politics, and African Healing......Page 1 Title Page......Page 4 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 A Note on Translation......Page 15 Prologue: AIDS, Rats, and Soldiers’ Belts......Page 17 1 Orientations......Page 23 Part 1. A Short Genealogy of Traditional Medicine......Page 53 2 Witchcraft, Oracles, and Native Medicine......Page 55 3 Making Tanzanian Traditional Medicine......Page 74 Part 2. Hailing Traditional Experts......Page 101 4 Healers and Their Intimate Becomings......Page 103 5 Traditional Birth Attendants as Institutional Evocations......Page 137 Part 3. Healing Matters......Page 165 6 Alternative Materialities......Page 167 7 Interferences and Inclusions......Page 191 8 Shifting Existences, or Being and Not-Being......Page 223 Conclusion: Postcolonial Ontological Politics......Page 248 Epilogue......Page 256 Glossary......Page 261 Notes......Page 263 References......Page 289 Index......Page 307