{"title":"Navigating the Divide: Healing Practices and Collective Wellbeing in a Nairobi Clinic","authors":"Emmy Corey","doi":"10.5840/jsce2022102572","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This paper analyzes ethnographic and historical data to emphasize the importance of framing health as collective wellbeing. Exploring missionary medical campaigns during the colonial period in East Africa, I connect the institutional legacy of Euro-American Protestant missions on the contemporary frameworks of US global public health provisions at my research site, Mwana Mwema Program. At this network of faith-based, USAID clinics in Kenya that provide treatment for children living with HIV, practitioners care for the wider community within a global health system that bases donor funding on epidemiological criteria. This narrow framing conflicts with practitioners' notions of healing as collective wellbeing and can exacerbate communal divisions. I argue that Mwana Mwema's notion of collective wellbeing offers a healthcare framework that faith-based providers can embrace. It yields more holistic care for entire communities and offers an opportunity for those of us in the United States to rethink our notions of health.","PeriodicalId":43321,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5840/jsce2022102572","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
abstract:This paper analyzes ethnographic and historical data to emphasize the importance of framing health as collective wellbeing. Exploring missionary medical campaigns during the colonial period in East Africa, I connect the institutional legacy of Euro-American Protestant missions on the contemporary frameworks of US global public health provisions at my research site, Mwana Mwema Program. At this network of faith-based, USAID clinics in Kenya that provide treatment for children living with HIV, practitioners care for the wider community within a global health system that bases donor funding on epidemiological criteria. This narrow framing conflicts with practitioners' notions of healing as collective wellbeing and can exacerbate communal divisions. I argue that Mwana Mwema's notion of collective wellbeing offers a healthcare framework that faith-based providers can embrace. It yields more holistic care for entire communities and offers an opportunity for those of us in the United States to rethink our notions of health.