The Search for Healing and Health in Zambian Eastern Province: A Sociological Investigation of Imbricated Health Systems

Abstract

In this study, I investigated the search for health and healing in a region of modern Zambia, tracing the imbricated forms of medical knowledge and practices. Drawing on my completed original Honours research project, and enlarging the number of informants and data collection methods by including some of my new materials in this dissertation, this study sets out to ask new and deeper questions about the sociology of health and healing. Firstly, through published work (from before independence, in 1964 to the 1990s), then through primary material (archival sources; published statistical and census data; medical and public health data etc.); and finally from interviews that I recently conducted.

The study addresses the following objectives: 1. To describe the complex health system of care in Zambia. 2. To describe and analyse the pattern of healthcare seeking behaviour in a complex, inequality and multi-layered healthcare system. 3. To investigate social relations of power, stigma and discrimination in a multi-layered healthcare system. 4. To explore wider considerations of how both men and women in Eastern Zambia perceive, navigate and use different forms of healthcare systems.

This study shows that men and women in this region of Zambia travel a complex journey in search of their well-being necessitated by the inequalities and complexities of regional healthcare systems. The study concludes by showing that the people of this region, demonstrate agency in their health practices, and their health seeking behaviour and actions are adjusted in an effort to facilitate their wellness. Given the gendered and patriarchal context of Zambian culture, the findings of this study are perhaps surprising that birthing women reported male midwives to be more gentle, calm, and respectful than female midwives, and that nurses who work in rural health posts are perceived to be more respectful than the nurses who work at central hospitals, thus these findings may suggest more need to explore these two themes.