Nomad RSI - Therapeutic diversity and the environment

Edited by Olivier Schmitz (2004), Louvain-la-Neuve: Université de Louvain
Language: French.

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Everywhere that it is established, biomedicine encounters local therapeutic forms which carry conceptions of the body and of sickness incompatible with its inherent principles. These local methods of healing have been carried on from the past, but not without undergoing certain transformations. We can also see across the world diverse situations of encounter and exchange between different medical systems, which offers a rich source of information for anthropologists and sociologists interested in the ways that people manage disease and health in various political, social and religious contexts. The articles that make up this issue carefully consider some of these situations. Opening the journal, an article by Armelle Giglio-Jacquemot discusses Umbanda, a Brazilian healing religion that emerged from the annexation and incorporation of elements from diverse cultural and historical origins. Jaqueline Andoche then reflects upon the encounter between psychiatry and other forms of knowledge concerning mental health and illness in La Réunion island. André Juillard then takes up the theme of the use of medicines on the basis of “bricolage” by nurses working in dispensaries. The contribution of Françoise Champion follows up on this, bringing a new clarity to the concept of bricolage based upon his work on new medico-religious encounters “mystic-esoteric nebulous”. Finally, Olivier Schmitz describes certain forms of adaptation and adjustment that he has observed between biomedicine, domestic medicine and healers during an ethnographic study in Belgium.