spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

multiple healthworlds leads to another crucial notion of ‘health’ that should be considered,
because the existence of many and diverse healthworlds is intrinsically linked with the
‘promiscuity’ of healthworlds (see Cochrane 2006b:12).
People develop their own constructions of what health is (or should be) by combining their
experiences and explanations with available models and systems. When looking for elements
that are meaningful in their specific life situation, people usually create a mixture out of the
various health options. Research on health issues and treatment in Africa has disclosed that it is
not uncommon for Africans to access multiple health systems or discourses simultaneously or
sequentially (see Vaughan 1991:206; Bate 1995:185; Jansen 2001:85; Good 2004:33; Cochrane
2006b:12ff; Rasmussen 2008:12). Sometimes these blends are complementary, sometimes they
may seem to carry contradictions and theoretically incoherent elements. Yet, they are produced
on the basis of their pragmatic and functional response to specific health situations. Perceived
needs prompt people to turn to those therapeutics that are available, accessible and congruent
with their healthworlds, without experiencing the various therapeutics as incompatible. Such a
situation is referred to as ‘hybridity’ in health ideas and health-seeking practices: the various
options that are provided by different health discourses offer the opportunity to select and to
combine. Sometimes choices are made, or combinations are rejected, on the basis of the
authority of a particular discourse, while on other occasions the social context of a health-seeker
presents the opportunity to adopt a hybridity strategy.
In this context, the term hybridity means: the processes that are induced by globalization, in other
words the cultural effect of globalization, and as such the movement that is opposed to
homogenization, modernization and westernization. The difficulty of the term hybridity is the
legacy of negative connotations linked to the terminology of the colonial period, as well as the
multiple and diverse efforts to disempower those negative racial associations that followed in
postcolonial discourse. The word hybrid originates in the field of biology, and simply means a
mixture of two organisms. At the end of the 18 th century, this term became assimilated into the
fields of linguistics and racial theory, which resulted in hybridity meaning the mixing of two
races, implying that the racial convergence was an aberration. Hybridity, thus, had a very
negative connotation in the transposition from the medical-biological discourse to the domain of
culture and identity. The meaning of the word hybridity entered a new phase with its application
in postcolonial discourse with its criticism of cultural imperialism. Scholars like Homi K.
Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Gayatri Spivak, Paul Gilroy and Mikhail Bakhtin have explored the (new)
meaning of hybridity in the cultural legacy of colonialism, and in issues like identity,
multiculturalism, anti-racism and globalization. The problem with the word hybridity is that it
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