Overview

As sub-Saharan Africa continues to confront the runaway epidemic of HIV/AIDS, traditional healers have been tapped as collaborators in prevention and education efforts. The terms of this collaboration, however, are far from settled and continually contested. As Modernizing Medicine in Zimbabwe demonstrates, serious questions continue to linger in the medical community since the explosion of the disease nearly thirty years ago. Are healers obstacles to health development? Do their explanations for the disease disregard biomedical science? Can the worlds of traditional healing and modern medicine coexist and cooperate? Combining anthropological, historical, and public health perspectives, Modernizing Medicine in Zimbabwe explores the intersection of African healing traditions and Western health development, emphasizing the role of this historical relationship in current debates about HIV/AIDS. Drawing on diverse sources including colonial records, missionary correspondence, international health policy reports, and interviews with traditional healers, anthropologist David S. Simmons demonstrates the remarkable adaptive qualities of these disparate communities as they try to meet the urgent needs of the people.

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9780826518071

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Reviews

This book is an important, well-written contribution to the debate and literature surrounding traditional medicine's role in the modern underdeveloped world. Highly recommended. <br>-- in Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources

Some of my undergraduate and graduate students have worked with traditional healer organizations in Uganda, and I have worked closely with religiously motivated allopathic healers in rural hospitals in Uganda. I found Simmons's account of the situation to be absolutely outstanding, and to square completely with my experience in the field. It provides exactly the kind of ethnographic detail that I think is appropriate for a decent treatment of the issue, and this detail is presented in the context of a sophisticated analysis of the political, historical, and infrastructural realities that I regard to be germane to the 'problem' of traditional healers and their roles in modern sub-Saharan Africa. Simmons's inclusion of his own personal contemplations, and the way he locates himself as an outsider, ethnographer, scholar, and caring human being, sets the tone in a very engaging manner that I believe will appeal to multiple audiences. <br>--Kimber Haddix McKay, University of Montana

Author Information

David S. Simmons is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior at the University of South Carolina.

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