Browsing by Author "Ashforth, Adam"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Restricted
    Ambiguities of 'culture' and the Antiretroviral rollout in South Africa
    (Taylor & Francis, 2005) Ashforth, Adam; Nattrass, Nicoli
    This paper reflects on two contrasting cultural strategies for supporting the rollout of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART): The Treatment Action Campaign's Treatment Literacy Programme which seeks to educate people into a conventional scientific understanding of HIV disease and treatment; and a Department of Health Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) video which harnesses putative 'indigenous knowledge' relating to illness and healing. It points out that the latter strategy risks connecting with fears regarding the 'African science' of witchcraft. This can serve to confuse, rather than clarify, ambiguities concerning the notion of 'cure'. Science education is challenging, but has the potential to empower patients to manage their illness effectively.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Ambiguities of 'culture' and the antiretroviral rollout in South Africa
    (2006) Ashforth, Adam; Nattrass, Nicoli
    This paper reflects on two contrasting cultural strategies for supporting the rollout of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART): The Treatment Action Campaign's Treatment Literacy Programme which seeks to educate people into a conventional scientific understanding of HIV disease and treatment; and a Department of Health Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) video which harnesses putative 'indigenous knowledge' relating to illness and healing.? It points out that the latter strategy risks connecting with fears regarding the 'African science' of witchcraft. This can serve to confuse, rather than clarify, ambiguities concerning the notion of 'cure'. Science education is challenging, but has the potential to empower patients to manage their illness effectively.?
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Restricted
    Muthi, Medicine and Witchcraft: Regulating 'African Science' in Post-Apartheid South Africa?
    (Taylor & Francis, 2005) Ashforth, Adam
    This paper comprises extracts from Adam Ashworth's book: Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago University Press, 2005) . It argues that the distinction between witchcraft and healing is essentially a moral one (healers and witches use supernatural forces supposedly for different ends) and that both activities fall under the rubric of 'African science '. Whereas proponents of 'Indigenous Knowledge Systems ' attempt, as part of a broader cultural project, to provide 'traditional' African healing with scientific status, others - starting with Montana's 1988 call to 'stop romanticizing the evil depredations of the sangoma' in order to Fee patients from the 'tyranny of superstition ' - emphasise the incommensurability of traditional healing practices with science. The paper concludes with a discussion of how such incommensurability makes it very difficult, if not impossible,for the post-apartheid state to regulate 'African science '.