Alternative medicine devices and the making of scientific herbal medicine in Ghana.

Many herbal medicine clinics in the West African nation of Ghana employ alternative medicine diagnostic equipment to help them stand out within a competitive popular medical sector. These devices are a prominent feature of clinics that identify as practising scientific herbal medicine, and they prom...

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Publicado en:Postcolonial Studies Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 229 - 248
Autor principal: Droney, Damien
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jun2022
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        10.1080/13688790.2021.1908649
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        atl: Alternative medicine devices and the making of scientific herbal medicine in Ghana.
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        au: Droney, Damien
        affil: Department of Anthropology, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, USA
      su:
        Herbal medicine
        Alternative medicine
        Medicine
        Ethnology
        Ghana
      sug:
        subj:
          Ghana
          Herbal medicine
          Alternative medicine
          Medicine
          Ethnology
      keyword:
        Africa
        alternative medicine
        modernity
        science
        Technology
      ab: Many herbal medicine clinics in the West African nation of Ghana employ alternative medicine diagnostic equipment to help them stand out within a competitive popular medical sector. These devices are a prominent feature of clinics that identify as practising scientific herbal medicine, and they promise scientifically advanced methods of diagnosis and treatment that stand outside mainstream biomedicine. Based on ethnographic research at two such clinics, I argue that frustrations with the functionality of these devices reveal the ongoing legacies of colonialism and its aftermath in Ghanaian cultures of expertise. Alternative medicine devices were sometimes represented as objects of spectacle. However, their failure to operate as advertised engendered debates about Ghana's place in transnational technoscientific networks. Finally, access to alternative medicine devices was structured through morally ambiguous financial transactions. In these ways, the construction of scientific herbal medicine is patterned by cultural meanings of science and technology produced through legacies of Ghana's twentieth-century history.
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