ABSTRACTTHE INTELLIEGENCE OF HEALING: BLACK AMERICAN ETHNOMEDICINE AS ALTERNATIVE KNOWLEDGEByAron S. Patton The aim of this research is to investigate and identify the ways in which African descendants in the Diaspora utilize a medical lexicon to place their discourse of healing and health within larger sociopolitical structures and to examine how African American conceptions of health and healing expands widely held beliefs about what is and what is not ‘political’. It seeks to explore and analyze the following questions: How do African Americans practice traditional healing within a larger sociopolitical context? Do their medical practices take into account larger community and social issues? If so, do they view community and social issues as contributing to individual well-being?Using ethnographic interviews and participant observations of African American practitioners of traditional medicine in Detroit, Michigan, this study is designed to illuminate the intersections between the medical and the political and the ways in which these two ideas are in constant flux with one another. I seek in part to utilize performance theory to examine how African-Americans practice traditional medicine. I will combine this framework with an ethnomedical framework in order to emphasize social roles, health beliefs and practices, and the culture in which such healing is taking place.
Read
