Abstract
Traditional healing remains an important aspect of many people’s engagement with healthcare and, in this, responses to the treatment of HIV/AIDS are no different. However, given the gravity of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, there has been much debate as to the value of traditional healing in this respect. Accordingly, this paper explores the extent to which meaningful accommodation between the biomedical and traditional sectors is possible (and/or even desirable). It does this through a consideration of Native American and South African experiences, looking at how the respective groups, in which medical pluralism is common, have addressed the issue of HIV/AIDS. The paper points to the importance of developing “culturally appropriate” forms of treatment that emphasise complementary rather than adversarial engagement between the traditional and biomedical systems and how policymakers can best facilitate this.
Highlights
This paper explores the extent to which lessons can be learned from the use of Native American and
Public Health 2015, 12 on original fieldwork conducted in South Africa, the study employs the analytic framework offered by the Native American/Indian Health Service relationship in a consideration of the South African experience
While traditional forms of healing, both Native American and South African, are increasingly coming to be viewed as valuable by those operating within a biomedical mindset, both of these traditional systems are still largely understood to be secondary to biomedicine in their importance
Summary
South African forms of traditional healing in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and the degree to which there is scope for meaningful collaboration in this respect in the treatment of a disease that, currently, is invariably fatal without recourse to antiretroviral therapy (ART). While traditional forms of healing, both Native American and South African, are increasingly coming to be viewed as valuable by those operating within a biomedical mindset, both of these traditional systems are still largely understood to be secondary to biomedicine in their importance. Colonialism in both regions saw significant efforts by authorities to eradicate what they perceived to be practices based on superstition and irrationality and, this binary perspective has in some quarters been challenged, this has only become the case relatively recently. Against the backdrop of HIV/AIDS, a disease that continues to threaten the lives of millions of people, this paper is a consideration, from a policymaking perspective, of practical attempts to reconcile aspects of what on the surface might appear to be irreconcilable worldviews [1]
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