Abstract: “In Tanzania, the encounter between a traditional malady called degedege and the modern malady malaria is a fight to participate in the making of the bodies of women and children as well as the agents that afflict them. In their respective settings, degedege and malaria are considered two of the most common threats to the well-being of pregnant women and their young children. Local, national, and international public-health concerns for the early treatment of malaria compel biomedical practitioners to claim that degedege is malaria. This article explores the power of this translation through an examination of the processes involved in treating degedege and the processes involved in treating malaria. I examine what is gained and what is lost through scientific or public health efforts to translate concepts, objects of practice, and agents of affliction from one form of care to another.”
Keywords: traditional healing; biomedicine; medical pluralism; Tanzania; Africa
Stacey A. Langwick, "2007. Langwick. "Devils, Parasites, and Fierce Needles Healing and the Politics of Translation in Southern Tanzania"", contributed by Angela Okune, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 19 July 2018, accessed 11 October 2024. http://www.stsinfrastructures.org/content/2007-langwick-devils-parasites-and-fierce-needles-healing-and-politics-translation-southern
Critical Commentary
AO: This 2007 article by Stacey Langwick looks at the the translation by biomedical practicioners of the concepts of degedege and malaria in Tanzania to understand what is gained and what is lost through scientific or public health efforts to translate concepts, objects of practice, and agents of affliction from one form of care to another.