Informal Knowledge and Biomedicine: Ghanaian Assemblages

Abstract

The field study took place in Dzodze, Ghana, over a period of 4 months in 2009. The data was collected through semi directed interviews and ethnography. The aim of this study was to investigate how localized practices provide a lens to gain larger insights into national and transnational politics of healing and knowledge. Precisely, how are current relationships between informal healers and biomedical practitioners performed in the everyday life of Dzodze, Ghana? The results of the study indicate no direct or institutionalized collaboration between biomedical practitioners and healers, however there is some form of relationships between informal birth attendants and public midwives. It is also apparent that the power relations linked with formal practices decrease possibilities for collaboration with informal medicine and also have a negative influence on any possible medium of innovation. The study also shows that people continue to use informal medicine because it works for them yet government reaction towards integration of informal medicine into national health system remains slow. Keywords: informal medicine, biomedicine, relationships