| dc.description.abstract |
Since the beginning of colonialism, people of different cultures have adamantly fought
changes that can irreversibly alter cultural identities. Sub-Saharan African societies,
specifically, have been victims of aggressive Western indoctrination. Colonialism
changed the entire face of societies it touched, including the domain of medicine.
Western medicine (biomedicine) and indigenous medicine (culturally and socially specific
medicinal practices) have contested with each other for centuries. Western biomedical
knowledge has long challenged the ideas and medical understandings of non-Western
societies. Each society has its own distinct reaction to these struggles, with many
African societies taking an all-or-nothing approach. Some societies embraced the ideas
and conceptions of the West, effectively sidelining indigenous values and ideals in
the exchange. Other communities, in order to shield themselves from outside influences,
refused all permeation of biomedical knowledge and continue to operate according to
their native medical traditions though this is progressively rarer. Very few cultures
have been able to adapt some of the beliefs, habits and measures of foreigners as
well as maintain the systems of their own culture in a collaborative fashion. Igbo
people have progressively blended the indigenous and Western medical perspectives
to achieve a complex and detailed understanding of disease. This paper is concerned
with the relationship between biomedical beliefs and cultural medical knowledge, examining
the effect of the former on the latter.
|
|
