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The Problem of Money : African Agency & Western Medicine in Northern Ghana / Bernhard Bierlich.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York ; Oxford : Berghahn Books, [2007]Copyright date: ©2007Description: 1 online resource (248 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781845453510
  • 9781782388739
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 306.4/61 22/eng/20240417
LOC classification:
  • GN655.G45
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations and Tables -- Foreword -- Preface -- 1 ‘New’ and Enduring Social and Economic Formations -- 2 Powers of the Person -- 3 Basic Concepts of Health and Illness -- 4 Medicines, Modernity and Commoditization -- 5 The Herbalist, Medical Pluralism and the Cultural Patterning of Illness -- 6 Health, Wealth and Magic -- 7 A Woman’s Lot: the Practical Realities of Care -- 8 The Problem of Money: Money and Medicine -- Conclusion -- Appendices -- References -- Glossary -- Index
Summary: Based on long-term medical anthropological research in northern Ghana, the author analyses issues of health and healing, of gender, and of the control and use of money in a changing rural African setting. He describes the culture of medical pluralism, so typical for neo-colonial states, and people’s choices of “traditional” (local) medicine (plants and sacrifices), Islamic medicine (charms and various written solutions) and ”modern” therapy (biomedicine, in particular western pharmaceuticals). He concludes that the rural-urban divide is a fiction, that demarcations between these areas are frequently blurred, linked by a postcolonial, capitalist discourse of local markets, regional economies and national structures, which frequently emerge in local African settings but often originate in global and multinational markets.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations and Tables -- Foreword -- Preface -- 1 ‘New’ and Enduring Social and Economic Formations -- 2 Powers of the Person -- 3 Basic Concepts of Health and Illness -- 4 Medicines, Modernity and Commoditization -- 5 The Herbalist, Medical Pluralism and the Cultural Patterning of Illness -- 6 Health, Wealth and Magic -- 7 A Woman’s Lot: the Practical Realities of Care -- 8 The Problem of Money: Money and Medicine -- Conclusion -- Appendices -- References -- Glossary -- Index

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http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Based on long-term medical anthropological research in northern Ghana, the author analyses issues of health and healing, of gender, and of the control and use of money in a changing rural African setting. He describes the culture of medical pluralism, so typical for neo-colonial states, and people’s choices of “traditional” (local) medicine (plants and sacrifices), Islamic medicine (charms and various written solutions) and ”modern” therapy (biomedicine, in particular western pharmaceuticals). He concludes that the rural-urban divide is a fiction, that demarcations between these areas are frequently blurred, linked by a postcolonial, capitalist discourse of local markets, regional economies and national structures, which frequently emerge in local African settings but often originate in global and multinational markets.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jun 2024)