The Marginalization of African Indigenous Healing Traditions within Western Medicine: Reconciling Ideological Tensions & Contradictions along the Epistemological Terrain

Abstract

In examining the production of knowledge in the health systems in Western and non-Western societies, this paper argues that scientific knowledge in Western medicine serves to foster and sustain the marginalization of ‘African indigenous’ health knowledges. Using conceptualisations of illness, symptom presentation and help-seeking among African peoples of the diaspora, the paper argues that the epistemological terrain upon which both indigenous and Western health professionals traverse is not level, resulting in a hierarchy of knowledge, as well as superficial dichotomies between the indigenous and Western health approaches that obscure opportunities for alliances at the epistemological crossroads. The paper concludes with a discussion on opportunities for forging alliances between both health systems