Education, Power and Social Change Annual Lecture - Hope amid symbolic violence
When:
—
Venue:
Online
Hope amid symbolic violence
Professor Gubela Mji, Stellenbosch University
This talk will show how allopathic medicine has existed as a form of symbolic violence through the way it was introduced to Amabomvane people who reside in a rural village in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. They feel that foreign entry undermined their civilization by introducing Western understandings and interpretations of education, religion, and health. The indigenous people of this area regard themselves as having been practising education, religion, and health for the health and well- being of their families long before foreign entry. The disregarding of the indigenous knowledge system of this area by the holders of Western knowledge can be interpreted as being a form of symbolic violence. Patients from this area who seek to utilize both indigenous and allopathic health strategies to manage illness are negatively affected by tensions that exists between biomedical and indigenous health practitioners. There exists a subtly violent conflict between the indigenous health practitioners and the allopathic health practitioners that operate in the area.
As the battle to take control of health matters by the allopathic health providers and to silence the people of this area of their indigenous health knowledge (IHK) continues, within the Bomvane culture there is a group of older women who see themselves as practising healing from a standpoint of humility and without duress, they are the valued and valuable IHK holders. They have carried the traditions and knowledge from generations of their forefathers, and they practice a deep wisdom of knowledge that connects the environment with the health and wellbeing of its inhabitants. Lately the healing vocation and knowledges of the Bomvane older women are at risk of being lost because of the changing mores within their community. The migration of the middle generation of AmaBomvane families to the cities for economic security, with some dying of HIV and AIDs has left the Bomvane older women having to change their roles. Previously they were the educators of the young, and now they must undertake the heavy duty of caring for the home and their young grandchildren. In view of the challenges that the Bomvane older women are currently facing, could the current (and Western) education system in the area assist with supporting the older women in this rural communities in managing the pressures, risks, and anxieties of this modern living?
Gubela Mji is a rehabilitation professional and Professor of Disability and Rehabilitation Studies at Stellenbosch University. She is the current chairperson and visionary behind the African Network for Evidence-to-Action in Disability (AfriNEAD). Some of her work involves issues of development, transformation, and indigenous knowledge systems. She recently published The walk without limbs: Searching for indigenous health knowledge in a rural context in South Africa.
Contact name:
Psychosocial Department Admin Team