Subproject A5
Ritual Healing and its Critics
Department and Research Field: Anthropology
Subproject A5 has been concluded June 30, 2009.
Subproject Management
Prof. Dr. WilliamSax William.Sax@urz.uni-heidelberg.de
South Asia
Institute
Department
of Anthropology
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
69120 Heidelberg
Phone: +49 (0) 6221 – 54 88 36
Fax: +49 (0) 6221 – 54 49 98
Staff
Ferdinand Okwaro M.A.okwarom@yahoo.com
Project Program
In India, just like in many other
places in the world, traditional systems of ritual healing have become the
subject of massive criticism for “modernity” and its representatives. In a
process that began with the colonial medical policy and that intensified
through the rising discursive power of biomedicine, ritual healing is defined
as “superstitious”, “unscientific”, and “backwardly”. Religious reformers,
which we also regard as representatives of “modernity”, often oppose practices
of ritual healing, denouncing them as “idolatrous” and “degenerated”.
Most industrial economic
organizations are in opposition to practices of ritual healing and many
“modern” people (such as rural-urban migrants, educated people, and scientists)
are no longer used to the ritual practices of their ancestors, ceased believing
in them or simply forgot about them. A series of anthropological investigations
has nevertheless shown that healing rituals are often “effective” and thrive
all over the world.
How can we explain these
processes? How does the “effectiveness” of the rituals contribute to their
survival? Who defines their “effectiveness” and by which criteria?
In this subproject, we suggest
the investigation of two healing systems in India. We will investigate how the
systems under examination seize the challenges of modernity and we will examine
the role of local understanding of “effectiveness” in this process.
Both the submitter and his
researcher concentrate on the issue of how systems of ritual healing embrace
religious and natural scientific criticism as well as altered surrounding
conditions. The former researches the proposed topic in the context of peasant
Hindus in North India, the latter in a Christianized tribal society in
North-East India.
Main Topics
A5.1 Ritual
change in a traditional healing system (Researcher: Prof. William S. Sax)
A5.2 Ritual
healing with the Naga (Researcher: Berit Fuhrmann, M.A.)
