The Professionalisation Of African Medicine

Originally published in 1986, this book draws upon a range of authors to reflect wide interest in systematising traditional medicine, and to include material on significant instances of regulation or organisation. It was the first book to study the efforts of traditional healers and their newly formed professional associations and as such constitutes a pioneering collection of sources. Because of the changing position of traditional medicine it may well also be a unique record: before long what is described here will largely have disappeared.

Originally published in 1986, this book draws upon a range of authors to reflect wide interest in systematising traditional medicine, and to include material on significant instances of regulation or organisation. It was the first book to study the efforts of traditional healers and their newly formed professional associations and as such constitutes a pioneering collection of sources. Because of the changing position of traditional medicine it may well also be a unique record: before long what is described here will largely have disappeared.

John Iliffe's latest book is the first history of an African medical profession in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania from the earliest training of modern medical staff in the 1870s to the present day. Based on extensive research and dealing exclusively with African doctors, it offers a new understanding of professionalisation in the Third World. It describes the recruitment and education of doctors, their understanding and practice of modern medicine, their struggle for international recognition of their qualifications, their efforts to develop East African medical systems after independence, and their experiences during a period of political and economic difficulty.

An analysis of the ties between culture and every aspect of African life, using Africa's past to explain present situations. This book focuses on the modern cultures of Africa, from the consequences of the imposition of Western rule to the current struggles to define national identities in the context of neo-liberal economic policies and globalization.The book argues that it is against the backdrop of foreign influences that Africa has defined for itself notions of identity and development. African cultures have been evolving in response to change, and in other ways solidly rooted in a shared past. The book successfully deconstructs the last one hundred and fifty years of cultures that have been disrupted, replaced, and resurrected. The Power of African Cultures challenges many preconceived notions, such as male dominance and female submission, the supposed unity of ethnic groups, and contemporary Western stereotypes of Africans. It also shows the dynamism of African cultures to adapt to foreign imposition: even as colonial rule forced the adoption of foreign institutions and cultures, African cultures appropriated these elements. Traditions were reworked, symbols redefined, and the past situated in contemporary problems in order to accommodate the modern era. Toyin Falola is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria. He is the recipient of the 2006 Cheikh Anta Diop Award for Exemplary Scholarship in AfricanStudies, and the 2008 Quintessence Award by the Africa Writers Endowment. He holds an honorary doctorate from Monmouth University and he is University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin where heis also the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities. His books include Nationalism and African Intellectuals and Violence in Nigeria, both from the University of Rochester Press.

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Africa presents to a broad readership an accessible, comprehensive, up to date, and topical comparative analysis of sociological thinking in Africa. Sociological discourse about African societies has been challenging and difficult, due to a lack of both comprehensive analyses and holistic sociological evidence that covers Africa from past to present times. This Handbook brings together latest analyses of sociological phenomena from the best scholars working on numerous thematic areas. It provides contributions that locates African sociological thinking in historical context and takes a critical look at its current manifestations across the continent. This collection builds upon an existing body of literature which has demonstrated that while the analysis of African societies has long been an item on the agenda of sociologists worldwide, advances of the decolonial critique made notably by African scholars in Africa enhances the scholarship of the sociology of Africa. Thus, the collection is premised upon the understanding that in order to understand the sociology of Africa as significant intervention, the participation and representation of African ways of knowing and doing is a critical starting point. This Handbook comprises a series of scholarly and interdisciplinary perspectives on current debates over how best to unpack sociological imaginations in African context. The scholarly contributions, therefore, are based on both perspectives illustrating the importance of specificity in sociological phenomenon. The Handbook is arranged in seven parts: Context and Perspectives; Race, Ethnicity, and Religion; Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality; Medical Sociology: Political Economy and Development; Crime and Violence; and The Family and Education. Premised on the importance of African ways of knowing and doing, these chapters offer sociologists, researchers, and students an invaluable starting point for a fuller understanding of African sociology.

In most places on the African continent, multiple health care options exist and patients draw on a therapeutic continuum that ranges from traditional medicine and religious healing to the latest in biomedical technology. The ethnographically based essays in this volume highlight African ways of perceiving sickness, making sense of and treating suffering, and thinking about health care to reveal the range and practice of everyday medicine in Africa through historical, political, and economic contexts.

Originally published between 1986 and 1989 the 8 volumes in this set reflect the research and debate surrounding many issues for the African economy, society and culture and as such make a vital contribution to effective development, both rural and urban. They re-issue key titles from the International African Library and the International African Seminars and address themes of direct relevance to contemporary Africa on topics as diverse as medicine, migration, housing, pastorialism and marriage.

This comparative text examines the rise of non-orthodox medicine and theorizes the changing nature of health care in modern societies. It engages with sociological debates on modernity and postmodernity, anthropological work.