IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cjssxx/v33y2007i4p783-799.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Finding and Foregrounding Massage in Khoisan Ethnography

Author

Listed:
  • Chris Low

Abstract

This article demonstrates that massage is a commonplace and important healing strategy amongst ‘Khoisan’. Ethnographic and anthropological literature, however, does not seem to reflect this and largely ignores or downplays massage. The article accounts for this apparent anomaly in terms of the contingency of the ethnographic eye. I contend that the primary reasons for this partiality concern the ‘everyday’ and ‘recognisable’ nature of massage and that the low medical status accorded massage through history has persistently deflected ethnographic interest. I further suggest that an overwhelming anthropological focus on the San healing dance has overshadowed recent research into healing strategies and perpetuated an uneven representation of Khoisan medicine. The article then describes how massage and the dance relate to one another in a wider healing context. By linking the dance and massage in this manner, I suggest how aspects of current massage practice continue to operate within distinctive and old Khoisan ways of thinking about and practising medicine. The article ends by presenting examples of ‘Khoi’ disease categories and their treatment by massage. Whilst not going so far as to identify a Khoisan ‘medical system’, the article uses massage to lay the bones of a distinctive and coherent approach to illness and treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Chris Low, 2007. "Finding and Foregrounding Massage in Khoisan Ethnography," Journal of Southern African Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 783-799.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:33:y:2007:i:4:p:783-799
    DOI: 10.1080/03057070701646902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03057070701646902
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03057070701646902?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:33:y:2007:i:4:p:783-799. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cjss .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.