The study of healing in Africa has long been trapped within constraining binaries: traditional versus modern, indigenous versus Western, resistance versus adoption. These dichotomies, while analytically convenient, often fail to capture the complex realities of African medical landscapes. When scholarship romanticizes “traditional” healing practices as timeless repositories of cultural wisdom, it risks obscuring their dynamic nature and innovative potential. Conversely, narratives that privilege biomedicine’s transformative impact often overlook the agency and adaptability of African healers, biomedical practitioners, and communities who selectively incorporated, reinterpreted, or rejected external medical frameworks. This panel seeks to bring into conversation studies that transcend these limiting dichotomies by exploring the fluid, hybrid, and multidirectional nature of healing knowledge across Africa from the 19th century to the present. Submissions may illuminate unexpected connections between seemingly disparate healing systems, explore the negotiation of authority in plural medical landscapes, or offer innovative methodological approaches to studying African medical knowledge. Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following questions: How have healing systems functioned simultaneously as sites of cultural preservation and innovation? In what ways does medical knowledge circulate across boundaries—geographical, temporal, social, gendered, and epistemological—challenging our established conceptual frameworks? How might we conceptualize African healing practices as dynamic and responsive without reducing them to mere reactions against colonial impositions? What can new methodological innovations such as material culture, visual evidence, and oral traditions reveal about healing practices that documentary evidence alone cannot capture?
We welcome papers from scholars working across different time periods, regions, and disciplinary approaches that engage with these questions. We invite submissions on topics related to, but not limited to, medical pluralism, gendered and spiritual dimensions of healing, healing practices, knowledge production and circulation, health governance, disaster response and health systems, embodied practices, and methodological innovations in the study of African medical histories.
To participate in this panel, please submit a 250-word abstract and short bio to anancy@email.unc.edu by March 15, 2025.
