
Healing the Exposed Being
The Ngoma Healing Tradition in South Africa
Robert Thornton(Author)
Wits University Press
Published on 1. May 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-77614-018-3 (ISBN)
Description
This ethnography explores the Ngoma healing tradition as practiced in eastern Mpumalanga, South Africa. 'Bungoma' is an active philosophical system and healing practice consisting of multiple strands, based on the notion that humans are intrinsically exposed to each other and that this is the cause of illness, but also the condition for the possibility of healing. This healing seeks to protect the 'exposed being' from harm through augmenting the self. Unlike Western medicine, it does not seek to cure physical ailments but aims to prevent suffering by allowing patients to transform their personal narratives of Self. Like Western medicine, it is empirical and is presented as a 'local knowledge' that amounts to a practical anthropology of human conflict and the environment. The book seeks to bring this anthropology and its therapeutic applications into relation with global academic anthropology by explaining it through political, economic, interpretive, and environmental lenses
Reviews / Votes
"Healing the Exposed Being is a scholarly, rich and engaging account of the complex and individualised knowledge systems and passages of influence that shape sangoma practices in South Africa. Thornton's descriptions of and insight into the philosophies, rituals, and objects of the sangoma, and the ancestors, spirits and others beings with whom they work, change our view of these healers as custodians of the living, advisers, philosophers and guardians. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in health and illness in the region." - Lenore Manderson, Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Medical Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand.More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Johannesburg
South Africa
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
26 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-77614-018-3 (9781776140183)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2017
Wits University Press
€33.99
Available for download
Person
Robert Thornton has conducted long-term ethnographic research in South Africa as an anthropologist at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg since 1992, and in Tanzania and Uganda. He obtained his PhD from the University of Chicago, and previously taught at the University of Cape Town.