"Because I was in pain, I just wanted to be treated": Competing Therapeutic Goals in the Performance of Healing HIV/AIDS in Rural Zimbabwe

Abstract

Zimbabwe is experiencing one of the most severe AIDS epidemics in the world, with an estimated one out of seven people infected with HIV. For both palliative care and pragmatic treatment of HIV-related opportunistic infections, people turn to Un'anga (the traditional system of health and healing), not as a substitute for Western therapeutics but as an alternative explanatory model for the diagnosis and management of illness. Through the use of highly charged symbols and ritualized communication, n'angas (traditional healers) seek to transform patients' understandings and experiences of HIV-related illness. Using performance theory and discourse analysis, this article seeks to expand our understanding of how competing therapeutic goals in the performance of healing affect the structure and content of performance, its subsequent meaning, and the therapeutic effect on those afflicted with HIV. Copyright © 2010 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.