Chinese Medicine in East Africa
An Intimacy with Strangers
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Berghahn Books
Publishing:1st Jul '25
£31.95
This title is due to be published on 1st July, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Based on fieldwork conducted between 2001-2008 in urban East Africa, this book explores who the patients, practitioners and paraprofessionals doing Chinese medicine were in this early period of renewed China-Africa relations. Rather than taking recourse to the ‘placebo effect’, the author explains through the spatialities and materialities of the medical procedures provided why - apart from purchasing the Chinese antimalarial called Artemisinin - locals would try out their ‘alternatively modern’ formulas for treating a wide range of post-colonial disorders and seek their sexual enhancement medicines.
“Elisabeth Hsu expertly weaves ethnography and theory to provide the reader with a lived experience of a journey of Chinese medical practices in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda … Hsu's work is rich with anthropological theory to help make meaning of her findings and, in turn, generously contributes to theory by virtue of the extensive findings and analyses presented.”• Paul I Kadetz, University of Global Health Equity
“This is a wonderful and very compelling book. Content is exhilarating, rich and intense throughout in a highly original fashion.”• Julie Laplante, University of Ottowa
ISBN: 9781836950844
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
440 pages