The Politics of Labels: Imperial Categorisations and the Marginalisation of Ethnomedicine in Nigeria during the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Abstract The names imposed on traditional medical institutions in colonial Nigeria criminalised and designated ethnomedical practitioners as quacks, charlatans and ‘witch doctors’ whose practices lacked merit. These labels shifted throughout the colonial and post-colonial era based on imperial politics and biomedical interests. Drawing from medical reports, anthropological essays and archival documents, this article explores twentieth-century colonial and post-colonial labels assigned to ethnomedicine in Nigeria as a strategy for delegitimisation and reflects on the post-colonial implications of such labels. Various scholars have explored the role of medicine in creating classification systems that were essential to the operation of colonial power. The article extends this body of literature by exploring the impacts of specific labels and naming patterns on representations of ethnomedicine throughout the twentieth century. It examines the various ways, including Nigeria’s extensive Nollywood film industry, through which stereotypes from pre-1960s labels continued to be propagated well beyond the colonial era.