Reinforcing Indigenous Communal Healing (ICH) as a Sustainable Health Science and Practice in Africa

Abstract

There has been a gap in the scientific nature of health sciences in indigenous communities for a long time (WHO, 2013) and colonial-hegemony still enjoys centre-stage in Africa’s health delivery system. Without acknowledging its efficacy, indigenous healing is generally depicted in the daily discourse of highly appreciated and regarded African scholars in utterances like “African Indigenous Knowledge must be proven scientifically” or “The research on indigenous knowledge systems must be reviewed by a virologist (‘real scientist’) to ascertain its scientific and scholarly rigor”. The previous dialogue generally invites a senseless cacophony where western-dominant scientists critique classical African scientific work through western science lenses without considering the unique African scientific domain. Hence their repressive assertions on what constitutes sciences.Contrary to what my elongated experience as an African indigenous scholar has revealed, it is noted that being African is currently viewed as a fashionable label, rather than an authentic lifestyle. However, the mentioned label occurs without the appreciation of the full amour of Africaness, Africanology or Africanity if new terms are to be coined to express one’s being unreservedly African in deeds and spirit despite the potential backlash. Evidently this longitudinal research executed by the Seboka research team elicit a critical scholarly discourse led by trigger questions to reinforce African Indigenous Communal healing as a health science and practice in its own right.