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

For over a century, plant specialists worldwide have sought to transform healing plants in African countries into pharmaceuticals. And for equally as long, conflicts over these medicinal plants have endured, from stolen recipes and toxic tonics to unfulfilled promises of laboratory equipment and usurped personal patents. In Bitter Roots, Abena Dove Osseo-Asare draws on publicly available records and extensive interviews with scientists and healers in Ghana, Madagascar, and South Africa to interpret how African scientists and healers, rural communities, and drug companiesandmdash;including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Unileverandmdash;have sought since the 1880s to develop drugs from Africaandrsquo;s medicinal plants.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;Osseo-Asare recalls the efforts to transform six plants into pharmaceuticals: rosy periwinkle, Asiatic pennywort, grains of paradise, Strophanthus, Cryptolepis, and Hoodia.and#160;Through the stories of each plant, she shows that herbal medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry have simultaneous and overlapping histories that cross geographic boundaries. At the same time, Osseo-Asare sheds new light on how various interests have tried to manage the rights to these healing plants and probes the challenges associated with assigning ownership to plants and their biochemical components.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;A fascinating examination of the history of medicine in colonial and postcolonial Africa, Bitter Roots will be indispensable for scholars of Africa; historians interested in medicine, biochemistry, and society; and policy makers concerned with drug access and patent rights.

Anthropologist Langwick's fieldwork in the town of Newala in southeastern Tanzania started in 1998. Shortly after arriving, the author had the good fortune to establish an association with Binti Dadi, a Muslim woman healer, and Mzee Kalimaga, a Christian male healer. For ten months during the initial field stay in 1998-99, Langwick (Cornell) apprenticed with Binti Dadi, even being called 'Binti Dadi mdogo'--little Binti Dadi. She returned to Newala for a couple of months in 2002 and 2003. She carried out her research in KiSwahili and provides a short glossary that translates and clarifies key concepts. A brief prologue sets the scene for the body of the discussion, which covers such topics as witchcraft, oracles, and native medicine; making Tanzanian traditional medicine; healers and their intimate becomings; and traditional birth attendants as institutional evocations. Part 3, 'Healing Matters,' explores alternative materialities, interferences and inclusions, and shifting existences, or being and not-being. There is a short conclusion on postcolonial ontological politics and a brief epilogue incorporating Langwick's newly born daughter into this 'family.' Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty/professionals. -- ChoiceB. M. du Toit, emeritus, University of Florida, February 2012

"Presents in-depth ethnographic information on a timely and relevant topic of long-standing interest, informing practical responses to significant social problems." --Tracy J. Luedke, Northeastern Illinois University Indiana University Press

"Compelling and radical... stunningly intimate, deeply intellectual, and thoroughly political." --Julie Livingston, Rutgers University

"This is an important and convincing reframing not only of the meaning of healing in postcolonial Tanzania, but also of what healing does. Bodies, Politics, and African Healing successfully challenges us to reconsider the very way in which we think about African healing." --Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

"This book contributes to the understanding of traditional medicine in a contemporary African setting. It makes clear the inequalities that shape the space under which healers must operate, and their efforts to work this to their advantage." --Anthropos

"Bodies, Politics, and African Healing is a bold and imaginative account that deserves to be read not only as an ethnography of medical pluralities in postcolonial Tanzania but also as an exemplary investigation into the field of ontological politics that unsettles deep-seated assumptions about truth and power. It will change the way many anthropologists think and write about medical ontologies in Africa and elsewhere." --Anthropology and Humanism Indiana University Press

"This book is a tour de force. Grounded in theory derived from anthropology and science and technology studies, Stacey A. Langwick's vibrant account of healing in Tanzania is exemplary of ethnography at its best. Moving beyond the concept of medical pluralism and an oppositional comparison of traditional healing and biomedical practice, Langwick leads her readers into the arena of 'ontological politics' where frictions among local medical experts are laid bare, and disputes about what is 'real' take center stage. Her focus on the production and circulation of therapeutic objects and their intimate association with the multiple ways that bodies come to be objectified and subjectively experienced decenters assumptions about truth and power in the postcolonial era." --Margaret Lock, McGill University

and#8220;In a fascinating look at modern and traditional medicine, the author tells the stories of efforts to commercialize pharmaceuticals from six African plants.and#8221;

andldquo;Bitter Roots is a book for our times: an age of bioprospecting and biopiracy, with hope for partnerships bringing bioprosperity. Abena Dove Osseo-Asareandrsquo;s remarkable investigations clarify both the facts and the issues through the example of how the roots of several plants associated with Africa have been used, studied, and remade. She notes the slippery entanglements between traditional and scientific practices and, in the process, stalks not only knowledge but justice. Informative, bold, and sensitive.andrdquo;

andldquo;By choosing to investigate colonial and postcolonial science through scientific work with plant medicines, Abena Dove Osseo-Asare deepens our understanding of the power relations not only between African and European or American scientists but also between healers and these indigenous and foreign scientists. Her detailed account of transnational scientific collaborations will be a lasting contribution to the field of science studies.andrdquo;

"Stacey Langwick draws on the insights raised by science technology studies and anthropological-historical analyses to reconsider what health and healing means in the town-district of Newala, situated on the edge of the Makonde Plateau, in southeastern Tanzania... She pushes readers to consider seriously how healers bring into material being the often unseen entities from other realms, an important part of their therapeutic practice" --American Ethnologist Indiana University Press

This subtle and powerful ethnography examines claims about the efficacy of traditional healing practices and their role in the politics of nation-building. Stacey A. Langwick describes the healers and healing practices in southeastern Tanzania and their influence on people seeking help. She finds tension between traditional and Western approaches to healing -- which often identify different causes for illness and suggest radically different therapies. Langwick devotes special attention to the materiality of healing, the body, the metaphysical world of illness, and the power of healing acts, and offers bold new insights on belief and knowledge, culture and nature, and tradition and science.

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.

Stacey A. Langwick is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University. She is a contributor to Borders and Healers (IUP, 2006).

Acknowledgments

A Note on Translation

Prologue: AIDS, Rats, and Soldiers' Belts

1. Orientations

Part 1. A Short Genealogy of Traditional Medicine

2. Witchcraft, Oracles, and Native Medicine

3. Making Tanzanian Traditional Medicine

Part 2. Hailing Traditional Experts

4. Healers and Their Intimate Becomings

5. Traditional Birth Attendants as Institutional Evocations

Part 3. Healing Matters

6. Alternative Materialities

7. Interferences and Inclusions

8. Shifting Existences, or Being and Not-Being

Conclusion: Postcolonial Ontological Politics

Epilogue

Glossary

Notes

References

Index