Traditional therapeutics, biomedicine and maternal health in Madagascar: paradoxes and power issues around the knowledge and practices of reninjaza - Quashie, Hélène; Pourette, Dolorès; Rakotomalala, Olivier; Andriamaro, Frédérique (Health, Culture and Society, 2014)
Public health development in Madagascar is not free from contradictory power dynamics surrounding medical knowledge, and often occurring between biomedicine and traditional healing. In the following paper, we will mainly focus on the therapeutic fields of maternal health, with mortality rates remaining a key public health issue in sub-Saharan Africa. We will examine the paradoxes, power struggles and contradictions affecting medical care during pregnancy and childbirth, with regard to specific knowledge and practices of particular traditional healers: reninjaza. The following study will show that institutional, social and political distinctions that fragment medical knowledge into mirroring areas, i.e. “traditional” and “modern” practices, feed power dynamics that obscure social realities at stake in maternal healthcare.
Keywords: journalArticle; Biomedicine; MADAGASCAR; Maternal health; Medical traditionalism; Politics; Traditional midwives; ⚠️ Invalid DOI