This article traces and analyses efforts by practitioners of traditional medicine to obtain official recognition of their sector in post-colonial Zimbabwe. Beginning with a brief historical background of the role of traditional medicine in the colonial period, during which traditional medical practice was marginalised and denigrated, while efforts were made to promote western medicine by the colonial settlers who benefited most from it, the article highlights the various post-colonial campaigns to get traditional medicine officially recognised as "a legitimate form of health care" and the struggles to "reshape traditional medicine into a health service parallel to western medicine". These campaigns are analysed within the broader context of Zimbabwe's search for national identity.
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