September 9 — “Medical Anthropology and Traditional Medicine in Contemporary Western Kenya”
Talk by a medical anthropologist from Moi University in Eldoret Kenya.
When: Tuesday September 9, 2:00 PM
Where: Cavanaugh Hall, Room 438 IUPUI 425 University Blvd. Indianapolis
Speaker: Dr. Harrison Maithya, Medical Anthropologist, Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya
Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the IUPUI Committee on African and African-American Studies All faculty, students and staff are encouraged to attend. I f you have any questions please contact Professor Jeanette Dickerson-Putman (jdickere@iupui.edu). Beginning in 2006 Professor Dickerson-Putman became involved in the development of collaborative partnerships between IUPUI and Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. She is one of the founding members and current US Director of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), a collaborative partnership between social scientists in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Moi University and the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. In March of 2007 the SSRN successfully organized the first IUPUI-Moi U International Symposium on Social Science Perspectives on HIV/AIDS in East Africa. In the Fall of 2008 she will begin a one year IUPUI funded, collaborative, anthropological research project with Dr. Harrison Maithya, a medical anthropologist from Moi University, entitled Cross-Cultural Histories of Family Care-Giving to AIDS orphans in Western Kenya.
Why does Provocate think you should attend this event?
The partnership between IU Med/IUPUI and Moi University is not only the most effective treatment program for HIV/AIDS in Africa. It is an opportunity for unique empirical research collaborations between US and Kenyan scientists, research that could provide steps toward solutions for more problems than just the AIDS pandemic. A good question for this discussion will be what lessons Western medicine can learn from traditional healing practices in Kenya, to what degree the two approaches can be complementary and to what degree they are in conflict.
If you think this sounds interesting, be sure to check out …
A similar discussion of African and Western health using as a starting point the IMA’s remarkable pieces “The Healing of the Akibu Children” November 16. The International Center of Indianapolis will honor the IU-Moi partnership as its “International citizen of the Year” on September 16.
And for your listening pleasure …
Fadhili William was popular in Kenya in the 1960s. Apart from very nice music, this song has one of the all-time best voice-overs in the middle, as good as Isaac Hayes getting into an argument with his back-up singers in the middle of “Theme from Shaft.”
