JSTOR

Higher Powers

Author

Scherz, China ; Mpanga, George ; Namirembe, Sarah

Year

2024

Publisher

University of California Press

Type

BOOK

Category

Social Science

Language

English

Pages

156

ISBN

978-0-52039-680-7

Link

Last Update

09-Sep-2024

Keywords

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural;SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African Studies;SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues

Description

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.

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