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12 | Somerville Magzine Of Witchcraft In the last couple of years, college travel grants have enabled students to reach far-flung destinations, such as Australia, CATHERINE BORG (2008, Human Sciences) Medical mysteries in Malawi A fantastic insight into the reality of anthropological research in a place with such a different culture from our own. Why do so many Malawians turn first to traditional healers when they are ill? Is western medicine less trusted because it lacks a spiritual dimension? These were the questions that the Wilma Crowther travel fund helped me attempt to answer in July and August 2009. I fi rst found myself asking the questions during my gap year, when I taught English in one of the most rural and untouched areas of Malawi, the Lower Shire Valley. Last summer I returned with Rosalie Lear, a fellow Human Scientist from Keble. We stayed in a Catholic mission in the village of Mitumbiri and, with the help of a local translator, arranged several interviews with people from the surrounding Namitembo parish. We questioned a diverse cross-section of people of varying ages and levels of education, living within different distances from the nearest western-style health clinic, as well as religious leaders, nurses and doctors, and most importantly, “a’singanga” – traditional healers. The interviews were very broad to begin with, as Rosalie and I began to understand who uses traditional healers, who uses western medicine and who uses both, in which situations and for which reasons. As we spoke to more and more people, we gained a greater insight into the methods used to treat various illnesses. Most interesting of all perhaps was the response to HIV/AIDS and the methods chosen to work alongside antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to prevent its progression. Whilst there was a general consensus that HIV is an incurable disease, a wide range of remedies were used by the different healers – including the Moringa tree. It turned out that Western doctors and nurses also advocated its use, thanks to its immune-boosting properties. This is certainly something I would like to follow up to fi nd out whether the tree is ever used in European medicine. We also learnt about the great importance to healing of “ufi ti” – that is, witchcraft – something we hadn’t anticipated. The experience was a fantastic insight into the reality of anthropological research in a place with such a different culture from our own, the diffi culties that come with it, and the need for a great variety of techniques to get accurate and useful information. The opportunity to experience both the biological and anthropological aspects of my course in the fi eld helped me put into practice what I learnt and read about in my fi rst year at Oxford. I am confi dent it will help me through the rest of my degree too. I am very grateful indeed to Somerville and to the donors of the fund. One day I hope to return to Malawi and further my research into its ethnographies, particularly the “a’singanga”. Photo: Rosalie and myself (from I – r) learning to make the staple “nsima” in front of a crowd of interested villagers
Somerville Magzine | 13 & War Crimes Japan, Syria and Zambia. But they took two Somervillians to places the rest of us can only imagine… Trial Chamber III, The Hague Kubo (centre) with ICTY colleages I spent the summer of 2008 in court – at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague to be precise. My internship in this unique environment was unpaid, so the Edith Haynes Award that I received was invaluable. For the whole duration of my internship, I worked in Trial Chamber III on the Milutinovic et al case. Six senior Serbian political, military and police offi cials – including Milan Milutinovic, former president of Serbia – were accused of an alleged campaign of terror and violence directed against Kosovo Albanians and other non-Serbs in Kosovo during 1999. I was responsible for assisting the judges in the preparation of the judgement and a great variety of legal tasks. As the case was in the fi nal stage of trial proceedings, I had the benefi t of access to a complete fi le comprising thousands of exhibits and tens of thousands of pages of transcripts. The experience provided me with an incredible insight into the way international jurisprudence is created in practice. It was a vital addition to the toolkit of legal skills and knowledge I had acquired during the course of my studies at Oxford and, prior to that, back home in the Czech Republic at the Charles University in Prague. Now, after a year away, I am back at Somerville doing research into humanitarian and criminal law. International humanitarian law applies in times of war (such as during the confl ict in the former Yugoslavia) and prescribes limits on the way wars are waged, while international criminal law deals with serious violations of international law – including war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide. The experience in The Hague is defi nitely facilitating my work and I hope I can use it to contribute to the wider Oxford academic community. In the long run, the internship will probably be a stepping stone towards a career as a lecturer in international law or a practitioner at one of the international or internationalised criminal tribunals. As for Milan Milutinovic, he was was acquitted of all charges in February 2009. His fi ve co-defendants received sentences ranging from 15 to 22 years. JAKUB ‘KUBO’ MACÁK` (2007, MJur Law) The experience in The Hague is definitely facilitating my work and I hope to use it to contribute to the wider Oxford academic community.
Page 1 and 2: Two faces of 18 24 32 35 Afghanista
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