Health System, Sickness and Social Suffering in Mekelle (Tigray - Ethiopia)

In medical anthropology, "medical system" refers to all the healing practices, therapeutic knowledge, and traditions that, in a specific social context, people can use in order to cope with health problems. It refers as well to all the social actors involved: policy makers, health professionals, healers, priests, patients, and their family. Starting from this perspective, this book presents the first results of an ethnographic research which was carried out in Tigray (the northernmost of the nine ethnic regions of Ethiopia), between 2007 and 2008. It analyzes, in the social context of Mekelle (the capital of Tigray), the different healing practices and therapeutic traditions, as well as the strategies of the actors acting in the social arena. It also explores the health care seeking behaviors of the patients in a context characterized by social suffering and inequalities. (Series: Mekelle University Social Science Series - Vol. 1)