In this Book
- Healing the Exposed Being: The Ngoma healing tradition in South Africa
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Wits University Press
summary
This ethnography explores the Ngoma healing tradition as practiced in eastern Mpumalanga, South Africa. ‘Bungoma’ is an active philosophical system and healing practice consisting of multiple strands, based on the notion that humans are intrinsically exposed to each other and that this is the cause of illness, but also the condition for the possibility of healing. This healing seeks to protect the ‘exposed being’ from harm through augmenting the self. Unlike Western medicine, it does not seek to cure physical ailments but aims to prevent suffering by allowing patients to transform their personal narratives of Self. Like Western medicine, it is empirical and is presented as a ‘local knowledge’ that amounts to a practical anthropology of human conflict and the environment. The book seeks to bring this anthropology and its therapeutic applications into relation with global academic anthropology by explaining it through political, economic, interpretive, and environmental lensesThis ethnography explores the Ngoma healing tradition as practiced in eastern Mpumalanga, South Africa. ‘Bungoma’ is an active philosophical system and healing practice consisting of multiple strands, based on the notion that humans are intrinsically exposed to each other and that this is the cause of illness, but also the condition for the possibility of healing. This healing seeks to protect the ‘exposed being’ from harm through augmenting the self. Unlike Western medicine, it does not seek to cure physical ailments but aims to prevent suffering by allowing patients to transform their personal narratives of Self. Like Western medicine, it is empirical and is presented as a ‘local knowledge’ that amounts to a practical anthropology of human conflict and the environment. The book seeks to bring this anthropology and its therapeutic applications into relation with global academic anthropology by explaining it through political, economic, interpretive, and environmental lensesIndexed in Clarivate Analytics Book Citation Index (Web of Science Core Collection)
Table of Contents
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- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. i-iv
- List of figures
- pp. vii-x
- Acknowledgements and dedication
- pp. xi-xvi
- 4. The transmission of knowledge in bungoma
- pp. 128-145
- Conclusion
- pp. 297-307
- References
- pp. 308-324
Additional Information
ISBN
9781776140190
Related ISBN(s)
9781776140183, 9781776140206
MARC Record
OCLC
1000469912
Pages
304
Launched on MUSE
2017-08-16
Language
English
Open Access
No