Key Concepts and Frames

Key Concepts and Frames
Health and Illness in African Worlds,
Monday, 11 January 1999

Goals for Today

WELCOME new students
introduce key CONCEPTS of course
consider our first PRIMARY SOURCES
- Livingstone (text from 1858)
- "New York: The Secret African City" (film, 1997)
get to know each, have first DISCUSSION/debate

Strategies for Getting There in 80 minutes

1. "Where we are," 10 min.
2. Film clip, 15 min.
3. Work in small groups with questions, 20 min.
- answer assigned question
- list questions
5. General discussion, 20 min.
6. "Key concepts (Med. Anthro 101)" and review/preview, 15 min

"Where we are"

Last class, each student:

filled in a file card
name, email, phone, dept., why you are here, distrib. Credit
wrote a first in-class writing exercise on: her/his first memory of (learning about) Africa
watched about 30 minutes of "New York: The Secret African City"

Last class, I went over the syllabus:

calendar is nearly accurate
values and expectations are accurate
web page is your playground
africa.health is for communication
come see me or ask me to meet with your small group

Requirements UPDATE

Regular, standard, certain track
- midterm (objective + essay), 10 Feb, 25 percent
- 5-7 page paper, choice of two questions, due 17 March, 30 percent
- final exam, 27 April , 30 percent
  - in-class objective AND take-home essay
- marked-up wall map, due 5 April, 5 percent
- class participation, 5 percent; fudge-room, 5 percent

Potential, not-yet final track

"Collaborative research" track
- regular midterm, 10 Feb., 25 percent
- 5-7 page paper is question B, due 17 March, tentative grade (30 percent)
  - serves as research prospectus
  - students can answer question B, and revert to regular track (question B is a trial run)
- final exam, 27 April: students take in-class objective only

Potential track, part 2

students form small groups as soon as possible, certainly by 1 March, included in class participation and fudge-room grade

final group project with individual components, due 27 April, 30 + 15 percent=45

map, 5 percent; classroom participation, 5 percent; fudge-room, 5 percent

"What we have learned"

Keyword from historian’s lexicon

primary source (e.g. Livingstone)
vs. secondary source (e.g. Thornton)

Primary source # 1:

New York: The Secret African City

Two major sources/traditions

for African religious and musical practice in New York City
- e.g., Haitian voodoo
- e.g., Salsa: Afro-Cuban + NYC

One: Yoruba

Orisha, gods and goddesses
Oshun, goddess of love
Elegua, deity of the crossroads

Two: Kongo

spirit medicines
reverberation of the ancestors
everytime cross water, crossing into a different world
syncretism = being bi-lingual
transmission is not genetic; it is conscious
Chokwe not far away

Introduces key concepts

drum <---> spirit possession

each beat coded
emotional level and intensity of drumming --->> s.p.
particular spirits with particular gestures/personalities

ngoma

word for drum (in KiKongo and many, many, many other languages)
word for spirit possession (or cult of affliction)

ngoma <---> food

pepper is high, hot tone
yam, banana, starch is low (cool) tone

diaspora

drumming, dancing, beads
religious practice
spirit possession
healing

transmission not genetic

great lie that slave trade destroyed dance traditions
VERY CONSCIOUS
mothers and fathers transmitting
people choosing, finding, RECREATING

syncretism

"syncretic means to be bilingual in religion"
"see god as saint, saint as god"
mixture, creolization
also translation

NEXT CLIP

returns to water
story of a woman who found Orisha as a child
embedded in Afro-Cuban song (mambo)
psychiatrist/healer: initiation

nkisi

Kongo word for charm or medicine
"there is no medicine with no song"
healing and ethics go together

THINK as you watch:

??? What are the relationships between religion and healing?
Compare with Reynolds: how kids become healers.
Compare with Livingstone: contact (conflicts) between religious/medical systems.

Small groups

5-6 persons per group; 12 groups
find a scribe
- list names
- go around and collect questions, write down

Film <---> Livingstone

who was Livingstone? What do we learn about him?
who was Sechele? Why did he want a square house? Why wouldn’t he make rain?
Who was the raindoctor? What was his logic?
Relate this to the film? Are there parallels? Links? STRETCH.

BIG QUESTION 1

What was the experience of illness?
Was the drought an "illness"?
What was the illness?

BIG QUESTION 2

What caused the drought?
What were the circulating ideas about causation and illness?
What was Livingstone’s diagnosis?
What was the local social analysis (diagnosis)?
What about the church bell?

BIG QUESTION 3

What was the relationship between wealth and health? Material conditions and disease?
(What was the disease/affliction ecology, including political economy?)
Did Livingstone "get it"?