This article argues that religious beliefs significantly influence a community’s understanding
and experience of climate change adaptation, indicating the need for an inclusion of such
information in climate change adaptation education. Data were collected using the Q-method,
whereby recurring statements were identified from semi-structured interviews with
Treatment with traditional medicine during pregnancy is believed to prevent miscarriage, ensuring
proper growth of the foetus and to strengthen the womb against witchcraft and to prevent childhood illnesses. The
purpose of the study was to determine how Traditional Health Practitioners (THPs) perceive their management of
An earlier paper in this journal reported on the perception and experience of 77 allopathic
health practitioners (AHPs) and health managers about working together with South African
traditional health practitioners (THPs). The paper stated that the abolishment of the Witchcraft
Based on mixed perceptions which were both negative and positive the policy makers
have not been vocal about the process to incorporate traditional healers into the
National Health Care Delivery System of South Africa. Negative views were related
to the denial that traditional healing does provide a cure and the positive views were
Background: The indigenous health system was perceived to be a threat to the allopathic
health system. It was associated with ‘witchcraft’, and actively discouraged, and repressed
through prohibition laws. The introduction of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22
of 2007 brought hope that those centuries of disrespect for traditional health systems would
In this article, the Author’s opening remark immediately shows which should be the cultural psychiatrist’s most proper approach to the diachronic and ethnographic broadness of the human struggle for maintaining well-being: “People have sought comfort for their miseries and a cure for their troubles since prehistoric time” (Romm, 1994).
This article examined the contribution of indigenous knowledge to disaster risk reduction activities in Zimbabwe. The current discourse underrates the use of indigenous knowledge of communities by practitioners when dealing with disasters’, as the knowledge is often viewed as outdated and primitive.
Rapid Rural Appraisal methods were used to collate and code the indigenous knowledge on animal healthcare of Tsonga speaking people of South Africa. There was a rapport between local disease names as described by their clinical signs by the farmers and the local veterinary services important disease list.
John B. Thompson relates power primarily to institutions, which embody the aims of a specific social structure. However, human actions will either endorse this social structure and empower its institutions or undermine them.