by Michelle Pentecost In this commentary I draw on my experience working as a medical doctor and an anthropologist to explore what different disciplinary orientations allow us to ‘see’ in clinical settings. I argue that the anthropological skills of observation, privileging relationship, and of learning to foreground social context, have much to offer for teaching […]
Tag: Global Health
Beyond the Lab: Eh!woza and Knowing Tuberculosis
by Bianca Masuku, Anastasia Koch, Ed Young, Digby Warner and Nolwazi Mkhwanazi The accompanying podcast offers a reflection on Eh!woza, a youth-based community engagement project focusing on tuberculosis (TB). Based in Cape Town, South Africa, Eh!woza functions as an interactive and interrogative platform, contrasting perspectives and concepts of TB as biomedical disease with personal experiences […]
Toxic Layering Through Three Disciplinary Lenses: Childhood Poisoning and Street Pesticide use in Cape Town South Africa
by Alison Swartz, Susan Levine, Hanna-Andrea Rother and Fritha Langerman In this article by Swartz, Levine, Rother and Langerman, we see the devastating effects of a hidden killer. Agricultural pesticides repurposed to kill rats and other unwanted pests have led to episodes of child poisoning. While on one hand, the pesticides are used to safeguard […]
Pharmaceuticals and Modern Statecraft in South Africa: The Cases of Opium Thalidomide and Contraception
by Julie Parle, Rebecca Hodes and Thembisa Waetjen In this audio clip, Thembisa Waetjen and Rebecca Hodes discuss their article, co-authored with Julie Parle, which explores a century of pharmaceutical politics through a close historical account of three medicaments. In African contexts, historical research necessarily engages with experiences of colonisation/decolonisation, which have shaped local and […]
Reflections on a Field Across Time and Space: The Emergent Medical and Health Humanities in South Africa
by Victoria Hume and Megan Wainwright In this podcast co-authors Victoria Hume and Megan Wainwright introduce themselves and their article. Both have been involved with medical humanities and related fields in the UK and moved to South Africa in 2014 where they became members of what would eventually become the emergent Medical and Health Humanities […]
Critical Orientations for Humanising Health Sciences Education in South Africa
by Berna Gerber, Michelle Pentecost, Megan Wainwright and Thomas Cousins In this article the authors argue that the curricula of health professions degree programmes in South Africa should be ‘humanised’ and ‘decolonised’. Curricular integration is used as the guiding framework. With the term integration we are referring to education that is based on a single […]
A Reflection on the Past, Present and Future of Critical Health and Medical Humanities in Malawi
by Chisomo Kalinga On 24–26 August 2017, the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College in Zomba hosted its first international medical humanities conference, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust. It was an honour to be part of the team that helped support this initiative with our hosts. Scholars, creative practitioners, policymakers, NGOs and members of […]
Medical and Health Humanities in Africa – Inclusion, Access, and Social Justice
Wamkelekile, karibu, welkom, and welcome to this special issue of the journal titled ‘Medical and Health Humanities in Africa – Inclusion, Access, and Social Justice’. Medical and Health Humanities (MHH) is a nascent field on the African continent; while the research, teaching, and practices of many people can be categorised as being MHH, it is […]
A Turn Toward Global Outreach
What does it mean to ‘think culturally’ about medical and health humanities? Earlier this year, I attended the Oslo Cultural Crossings of Care conference, which intended to discuss health humanities ‘across boundaries.’ The aim was a noble one, and I think quite successful (we hope to share some more articles from that conference in the […]
Special Issue Focus: Medical Humanities in Africa
‘Medical and Health Humanities in Africa – Inclusion, Access, and Social Justice’ “Wamkelekile, karibu, welkom, and welcome,” begins the introduction to this special issue, guest edited by Carla Tsampiras[1], Nolwazi Mkhwanazi[2], and Victoria Hume[3]. In this, our final issue of 2018, we are pleased to present works from parts of Africa on the subject of […]