Ancestral calling, traditional health practitioner training and mental illness:An ethnographic study from rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

This qualitative ethnographic study complements an epidemiological study on first episode psychosis in Vulindlela, a rural area in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It focuses on two themes that emerged from our data: (1) the calling of the ancestors to become a traditional health practitioner and (2) ukuthwasa, the training to become a traditional health practitioner. The purpose of this study is to describe the ancestral calling, and to explore whether ukuthwasa may help with the management of mental disturbances, including unusual perceptual experiences. We also provide a discussion of the changing sociopolitical context of healing in KwaZulu-Natal, as a background to our study. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 (apprentice) traditional health practitioners, formal health practitioners, patients and relatives recruited through local traditional health practitioners and a health care clinic. Our results show that the ancestral calling might announce itself with symptoms of mental illness including unusual perceptual experiences, for which some participants consider ukuthwasa as the only effective cure. We found indications that in some individuals successful completion of ukuthwasa might promote recovery from their illness and lead to a profession in which the unusual perceptual experiences become a legitimate and positively valued aspect. We suggest that - in this particular community today, which has been subject to several sociopolitical changes - ukuthwasa may be a culturally sanctioned healing process which moderates experiences that a Western psychiatric system might characterize as psychotic symptoms, providing some individuals with a lucrative and respected role in society

Aids, Sex, And Culture

xxi.265 hal.;ind.;23 c

Norman street : peverty and palities in an urban neighherbood

x, 230 p.; 20 cm

Global Visions and Grassroots Movements: An Anthropological Perspective

In the past decade many progressive anthropologists have been concerned with understanding the transformative possibilities of social movements in redefining and limiting the worldwide inroads of global capital. In emphasizing cultural transformation, Castells' approach in "The City and the Grassroots" (1983) may help to conceptualize the idealistic and sometimes quixotic movements of the information age. Like Christopher Hill and other social historians, Castells seeks to understand culturally available paths and ideals that opened the possibilities for democracy, whether or not the visionaries succeeded at any particular historical moment. Today, working-class solidarity is less clearly defined in the face of a rapidly shrinking and ever-relocating manufacturing sector, while, at the same time, social provisions have been cut back and privatized. At the grey dawning of the twenty-first century, in the face of US imperialist aggression and increasing global corporate wealth, Castells' emphasis on the genesis of a new democratic vision as well as on mobilization around issues of collective consumption has become ever more salient. Copyright (c) 2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation (c) 2006 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Transformative Cities: The Three Urban Commons

International audienceDrawing on Lefebvre and others, this article considers contemporary urban social movements with a selective review of urban research and suggestions for future ethnographic, cultural, and sociological questions. Under a generalized post-Fordist regime of capital accumulation, cultural workers and laborers, ser vice workers, and community activists have all participated in urban movements. We consider such collective action, generated in the crucible of urban life, as a reflection of three urban commons: labor, consumption, and public services; public space (including mass communications and the virtual); and art, including all forms of creative expression. We suggest that the three urban commons outlined here are not necessarily perceived everywhere, but as they momentarily come together in cities around the world, they give us a glimpse of a city built on the social needs of a population. That is the point when cities become transformative