Higher Powers - Alcohol and After in Ugandas Capital City

About the author

China Scherz is Professor of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and author of Having People, Having Heart. George Mpanga and Sarah Namirembe are independent researchers living in Kampala, Uganda.

Summary

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Higher Powers draws on four years of collaborative fieldwork carried out with Ugandans working to reconstruct their lives after attempting to leave behind problematic alcohol use. Given the relatively recent introduction of biomedical ideas of alcoholism and addiction in Uganda, most of these people have used other therapeutic resources, including herbal aversion therapies, engagements with balubaale spirits, and forms of deliverance and spiritual warfare practiced in Pentecostal churches. While these methods are at times severe, they contain within them understandings of the self and practices of sociality that point away from models of addiction as a chronic relapsing brain disease and towards the possibility of release. Higher Powers offers a reconceptualization of addiction and recovery that may prove relevant well beyond Uganda.

Product details

• Authors: George Mpanga, Sarah Namirembe, China Scherz, China Mpanga Scherz, Scherz China
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 06.02.2024
• EAN: 9780520396791
• ISBN: 978-0-520-39679-1
• No. of pages: 156
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Pre and early history; Ethnic Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues, Africa, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Archaeology, Social and cultural anthropology, Health, illness and addiction: social aspects, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / African Studies