Browsing by Author "Wreford, Jo"

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    Talking with the white: sharing the experiences of white sangoma in contemporary South Africa
    (2006) Wreford, Jo
    The phenomenon of whites who have graduated as sangoma - the ancestrally guided spiritual healing system of South Africa - has become a contemporary cause celebre, a matter for academic and popular debate (de Bruyn 2004; Dowson 2001; Wreford in progress). In some circles the idea is dismissed as inconceivable (Masiba 2001): Other sangoma optimistically embrace the introduction of whites to their ranks as a natural and positive innovation. Biomedicine meanwhile generally dismisses sangoma healing ideas and practice and thus ignores the potential advantages of co-operation with this parallel healing system on which between 60 and 80% of the majority population still depend (Pretorius 1999). This paper examines white sangoma in the context of the social and political conditions of contemporary urban South Africa. Sources for the paper include my personal experience of training and graduation as a sangoma, as well as material gathered from black African sangoma, and, more recently, from white initiates and graduates. The paper examines whether these healers represent a hybrid phenomenon, a development of tradition as a 'changing same' (Clifford 2003: 113) or, as their critics allege, yet another version of colonial exploitation (Mndende 2001), and asks how white sangoma see themselves, how their supporters, mentors and clients view them, and how they respond to their critics. Finally, the paper suggests that whatever their categorisation, there may be a fruitful role for white sangoma in effecting a more collaborative relationship between biomedicine and traditional healers in South Africa, particularly in the face of the AIDS pandemic ravaging the country.
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    'We can help!' - A literature review of current practice involving traditional African healers in biomedical HIV/AIDS interventions in South Africa
    (2005) Wreford, Jo
    This review describes the available research literature involved with efforts at collaboration between Traditional African Healers (TAHs) and biomedical practitioners in HIV/AIDS interventions in Southern Africa. The paper draws on academic texts including published and unpublished research papers, books and reports, and press comments on the subject. The focus is on Southern African literature, but selected texts from elsewhere on the continent are also included. The paper interrogates, in particular, the roles assigned to more spiritually inspired practitioners, such as sangoma, in these interventions. The paper considers the effects on relationships between biomedicine and the traditional health sector and explores some of the obstacles in the way of successful future collaborations. The analysis addresses the following questions: What are the roles assigned to sangoma and other traditional health practitioners in biomedically constructed HIV/AIDS interventions to date? What has been the experience of sangoma and traditional health practitioners of these interventions, and how have biomedical professionals involved in these interventions responded to the traditional health practitioners? What factors contribute to negative responses where these occur, and how might these be addressed? Could the roles of sangoma and traditional health practitioners be enhanced to improve the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS interventions?
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    'Working with spirit': Experiencing Izingoma healing in contemporary South Africa
    (Berghahn Books, 2008) Wreford, Jo
    In the current model of health dispensation in South Africa there are two major paradigms, the spirit-inspired tradition of izangoma sinyanga and biomedicine. These operate at best in parallel, but more often than not are at odds with one another. This book, based on the author's personal experience as a practitioner of traditional African medicine, considers the effects of the absence of spirit in biomedicine on collaborative relationships. Given the unprecedented challenge of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country, the author suggests that more cooperation is vital. Taking a critical look at the role of anthropology in this endeavor, she proposes the development of a "language of spirit" by means of which the spirit-inspired aetiology of izangoma sinyanga may be made comprehensible to academic scientists and applicable to medical interventions. The author discusses white izangoma in the context of current debates on healing and hybridity and insists that there exists a powerful role for izangoma in the realm of societal healing. Above all, the book constitutes a start in what the author hopes will develop into an ongoing intellectual conversation between traditional African healing, academe, and biomedicine in South Africa. Jo Thobeka Wreford accepted a community architectural post in Zimbabwe in 1992, where she met the Xhosa healer with whom, in 2001, she graduated as a sangoma. She now divides her time between her healing practice and research in sangoma and HIV/AIDS at the University of Cape Town. In 2004 she was awarded a Research Scholarship with the AIDS and Society Research Unit (ASRU), Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) at the University of Cape Town.