Based on extensive field research in the Manianga region of the Lower Congo, Health in a Fragile State is an anthropological account of public health and health care after the collapse of the Congolese state in the 1980s and 1990s. This work brings into focus John M. Janzen's earlier books on African health and healing, revealing the collaborative effort by local, national, and international agencies to create viable alternative institutions to those that represented the centralized state. This book documents and analyzes the realignment of existing institutions and the creation of new ones that shape health and healing. Janzen explores the manner in which power and information, including science, are legitimized in the preservation and improvement of health. Institutional validity and knowledge empower citizens and health practitioners to gain the upper hand over the region's principal diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and HIV/AIDS.

Health in a Fragile State: Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

History

Janzen, John M.

Africa

University of Wisconsin Press

Based on extensive field research in the Manianga region of the Lower Congo, Health in a Fragile State is an anthropological account of public health and health care after the collapse of the Congolese state in the 1980s and 1990s. This work brings into focus John M. Janzen's earlier books on African health and healing, revealing the collaborative effort by local, national, and international agencies to create viable alternative institutions to those that represented the centralized state. This book documents and analyzes the realignment of existing institutions and the creation of new ones that shape health and healing. Janzen explores the manner in which power and information, including science, are legitimized in the preservation and improvement of health. Institutional validity and knowledge empower citizens and health practitioners to gain the upper hand over the region's principal diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and HIV/AIDS.

In this book, Dr. John M. Janzen describes patterns of healing among the BaKongo of Lower Zaire in Africa, who, like many peoples elsewhere, utilize cosmopolitan medicine alongside traditional healing practices. What criteria, he asks, determine the choice of the alternative therapies? And what is their institutional interrelationship? In seeking answers, he analyzes case histories and cultural contexts to explore what social transactions, decisionmaking, illness and therapy classifications, and resource allocations are used in the choice of therapy by the ill, their kinfolk, friends, asociates, and specialized practitioners. From the Preface: This book presents an "on the ground" ethnographic account of how medical clients of one region of Lower Zaire diagnose illness, select therapies, and evaluate treatments, a process we call "therapy management." The book is intended to clarify a phenomenon of which central African clients have long been cognizant, namely, that medical systems are used in combination. Our study is aimed primarily at readers interested in the practical issues of medical decision-making in an African country, the cultural content of symptoms, and the dynamics of medical pluralism, that is, the existence in a single society of differently designed and conceived medical systems.

The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care)

University of California Press

In this book, Dr. John M. Janzen describes patterns of healing among the BaKongo of Lower Zaire in Africa, who, like many peoples elsewhere, utilize cosmopolitan medicine alongside traditional healing practices. What criteria, he asks, determine the choice of the alternative therapies? And what is their institutional interrelationship? In seeking answers, he analyzes case histories and cultural contexts to explore what social transactions, decisionmaking, illness and therapy classifications, and resource allocations are used in the choice of therapy by the ill, their kinfolk, friends, asociates, and specialized practitioners. From the Preface: This book presents an "on the ground" ethnographic account of how medical clients of one region of Lower Zaire diagnose illness, select therapies, and evaluate treatments, a process we call "therapy management." The book is intended to clarify a phenomenon of which central African clients have long been cognizant, namely, that medical systems are used in combination. Our study is aimed primarily at readers interested in the practical issues of medical decision-making in an African country, the cultural content of symptoms, and the dynamics of medical pluralism, that is, the existence in a single society of differently designed and conceived medical systems.

The Quest for Therapy: Medical Pluralism in Lower Zaire (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care) (Volume 1)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Leslie, Charles

Arkinstall, William

Alternative Medicine

Until now our knowledge of African health and healing has been extensive but fragmented. Here in eighteen essays is the first comprehensive account of disease, health,and healing practices in the African continent. The contributors all emphasize the social conditions linked to ill health and the development of local healing traditions, from Morocco to South Africa and from the precolonial era to the present. Several chapters illustrate how the most basic facts of everyday life encourage the spread of disease and chape the possibilities of survival. Other discuss a variety of healing practices: drums of affliction in Bantu-speaking societies, Muslim humoral medicine, and biomedicine as practiced in hospitals and dispensaries. The editors provide introductory overviews explaining why and how health and disease are related to historical, economic, and political phenomena.

The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care) (Volume 30)

Feierman, Steven

Ngoma, in Bantu, means drum, song, performance, and healing cult or association. A widespread form of ritual healing in Central and Southern Africa, ngoma is fully investigated here for the first time and interpreted in a contemporary context. John Janzen's daring study incorporates drumming and spirit possession into a broader, institutional profile that emphasizes the varieties of knowledge and social forms and also the common elements of "doing ngoma." Drawing on his recent field research in Kinshasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Mbabane, and Capetown, Janzen reveals how ngoma transcends national and social boundaries. Spoken and sung discourses about affliction, extended counseling, reorientation of the self or household, and the creation of networks that link the afflicted, their kin, and their healers are all central to ngoma―and familiar to Western self-help institutions as well. Students of African healing and also those interested in the comparative and historical study of medicine, religion, and music will find Ngoma a valuable and thought-provoking book.

Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (Volume 34) (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care)

Looks at the history and culture of the Mennonite immigrants that settled in the Plains states, and describes the furniture they made, including cabinets, chests, tables, and clocks

Mennonite Furniture: A Migrant Tradition (1766-1910)

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Janzen, Reinhild Kauenhoven

Antiques & Collectibles

Good Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Janzen, John M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Janzen, John M.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Janzen, John M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Health in a Fragile State: Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

Health in a Fragile State: Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care)

The Quest for Therapy: Medical Pluralism in Lower Zaire (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care) (Volume 1)

The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care) (Volume 30)

Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (Volume 34) (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care)

Mennonite Furniture: A Migrant Tradition (1766-1910)