Cosmos, Gods and Madmen : Frameworks in the Anthropologies of Medicine

The social anthropology of sickness and health has always been concerned with religious cosmologies: how societies make sense of such issues as prediction and control of misfortune and fate; the malevolence of others; the benevolence (or otherwise) of the mystical world; local understanding and explanations of the natural and ultra-human worlds. This volume presents differing categorizations and conflicts that occur as people seek to make sense of suffering and their experiences. Cosmologies, whether incorporating the divine or as purely secular, lead us to interpret human action and the human constitution, its ills and its healing and, in particular, ways which determine and limit our very possibilities. Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Divinity, Disease, Distress Chapter 1 Why Animism Matters Chapter 2 Spreading the Gospel of the Miracle Cure: Panama’s Black Christ Chapter 3 Madness and Miracles: Hoping for Healing in Rural Ghana Chapter 4 ‘Sakawa’ Rumours Occult Internet Fraud and Ghanaian Identity Chapter 5 To Heal the Body: The Body as Congregation among Post-Surgical Patients in Benin Chapter 6 Addiction and the Duality of the Self in a North American Religio- Therapeutic Community Chapter 7 Religious Conversion and Madness: Contested Territory in the Peruvian Andes Chapter 8 Cosmologies of Fear: The Medicalization of Anxiety in Contemporary Britain Chapter 9 Functionalists and Zombis: Sorcery as Spandrel and Social Rescue Chapter 10 Religion and Psychosis: A Common Evolutionary Trajectory? Index Introduction : Divinity, Disease, Distress / Roland Littlewood And Rebecca Lynch -- Why Animism Matters / A. David Napier -- Spreading The Gospel Of The Miracle Cure / Rodney J. Reynolds -- Madness And Miracles / Ursula M. Read -- Sakawa Rumours / Alice Armstrong -- To Heal The Body Is To Heal Oneself / Isabelle Lange -- Addiction And The Duality Of The Self In A North American Religio-therapeutic Community / Ellie Reynolds -- Religious Conversion And Madness / David M.r. Orr -- Cosmologies Of Fear / Rebecca Lynch -- Functionalists And Zombis / Roland Littlewood -- Religion And Psychosis / Simon Dein. Edited By Roland Littlewood And Rebecca Lynch. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The social anthropology of sickness and health has always been concerned with religious cosmologies. The chapters cover a range of ethnographic areas and examine notions of personhood, agency, uncertainty and control among other questions.