Medicine and Morality in Haiti: The Contest for Healing Power

Having lived in rural Haiti and worked in medical clinics with an indigenous staff, this book was an invaluable resource. The conflict between Western biomedicine and folk healing practices (including the much-maligned voodoo and herbalists) was well-explained and went a long way towards elucidating the phenomena I was observing in my own clinic. An absolutely essential resource to anyone interested in public health, Third-World medical practice, Haitian life or anthropology in general, I give this book my heartiest recommendation.

This is a superb teaching book that gives students a way to learn about medicine and culture and at the same time learn about Haiti's complex history. I've used it in both upper and lower-level undergraduate courses and the students have loved it. The students especially like the case studies. The book contains rich vignettes of individuals who had to negotiate different health care systems; the crux of the book is that people's experiences of their illnesses (anywhere, not just in Haiti), and the strategies they adopt to help themselves, have to be understood in the context of larger cultural and historical systems. There are not that many books to compete with this one. As an anthropology teacher, I find this book much less problematic than Emily Martin's book, Woman in the Body, which is so commonly used to teach medical anthropology. Comparable books to this one: Teresa O'Nell's Disciplined Hearts (depression in North American Indians) and John Janzen's Quest for Therapy (on lower Zaire), Burdick's Looking for God in Brazil. Great for medicine; great for Caribbean.