Abstract:
This essay aims to define the implications western perspectives have had in the marginalisation of indigenous perspectives on health practices as it has been negatively portrayed in media and undermined as a form of healthcare. Visuality and countervisuality will be used as an approach to understanding the difficulties faced in the discourse about differing perspectives of healthcare and the role of the Leadership persona.
Essay:
Decolonisation in modern South Africa is seeking to challenge the injustices of past colonisation that still affetcs people of today. The focus regarding Decolonisation in modern South Africa will be through the area of health, mostly but not limited to Psychology, because this impacts a large amount of community members who mostly live in poverty-stricken areas.
Understanding that people who live in those areas actively seek help from traditional healers; who face negative stigma's in discourses compared to medical practise seen as 'modern,' is a form of marginalisation. This marginalisation of indigenous practices can be challenged and steps can be taken to aid leaders who are calling for the Decolonisation of health in South Africa.
Traditional Western approaches to science aims to seek objective knowledge which is set to be free of the values and meanings of those who attain this knowledge. This objective knowledge can be arrived at by those who engage in the necessary thought processes or experimental procedures, such as the Scientific Method. (Mkhize 2014: 27). However, researchers argue that this way of knowing claimed to be separated and value free is neither timeless or value free but is a product of the scientific revolution which occurred in 16th and 17th centuries. (Mkhize 2014:27).
It was during this period that the Western world saw a gradual shift from the dominant community/religious positioning to an extraordinary scientific and materialistic position. This sparked the revolt against traditions and customs, which were seen as a threat to individuality and freedom. Therefore, the view that individuals could be distinguished from the world and each other, and from their customs, traditions, and the social realm in general emerged. (Mkhize 2014: 27)
This aim of objective knowledge then creates a visuality (Mierzoeff, 2011) from the Western Perspective to ensure that the supposed ‘’developed world”, which claims the authority of scientific practice which continues to produce and market psychological knowledge and subsequently health to developing societies. As African societies remain consumers of Western ideas and technology, the Imperialist Complex comes into play (Mierzoeff, 2011). The set ideal created from the practices in Western Societies became the bases of the ‘civilised’ method of practising Psychological methods (Mierzoff, 2011). By the claim of this western-based perspective to be researched based ‘generates an aesthetic of respect for the status quo.’ Therefore, the visuality of Western health practices continuous to hold a dominant position in African societies. It also claims ‘modernity’ in that it moves past the ‘primitive’ way of approaching health, i.e non-scientific methods of health.
A countervistuality therefore would be to challenge the visuality of the Western perspective and the hyper-visuality of African health practices to be widely depicted as ‘witchcraft’ in media, leading to a Post-panoptic visuality (Du Preez, 2015).
Consumers of media and media outlets tend to believe in the idea that African health means to be practising ‘witchcraft’ more so than being a beneficial healing method, which can be argued as an aspect that is invisible (Du Preez, 2015). Navigating through the act of countervisuality, Leaders at the forefront of presenting a challenge through their Leadership Persona may find difficulty unless they inspire a decolonised approach.
Hence the call for indigenous approaches to health, with regards to psychology, stems from the realisation that indigenous peoples were not passive recipients of experience but were actively creating psychosocial and other forms of knowledge long before colonisation (Mkhize 2014: 28). Indigenous communities have had to develop practices and conceptual frameworks to deal realities of the people concerned (Mkhize 2014: 28).
This knowledge also investigates everyday experiences, rather than experimental behaviours that would normally exclude those without access to any study aimed at discovering such behaviours. Indigenous forms of health such psychology aims to address the needs of the people in question (Mkhize 2014:28).
However, it would be naïve to ignore other frameworks of knowledge such as western frameworks, ‘given that people do not live in impenetrable cultural enclaves’ (Mkhize 2014: 29). Mkhize poses the questions ‘If rural inhabitants abandon their dated ways of life, can we guarantee that they will be able to participate in and benefit from modern psychology, among others? Or are we creating doubly marginalised people, deprived of their own cultural heritage and yet unable to partake meaningfully in modern ways of life?’ In the context of psychology, the visuality created by the Western perspective is challenged by this notion that it is universal, therefore we begin to see it is usually the most disadvantaged segments of the population who have limited access to modern healthcare and rely mostly on services premised on traditional African worldviews (Mkhize 2014: 30).
Although marginalisation of these perspectives thus contributes to the oppression of the people who rely on them, an opportunity for these perspectives to exist in the world visualised by the Western perspective arises. These Western theoretical frameworks may have relevance of some sort in developing societies but they cannot be exclusively used to explain human needs across cultures and across time, neither is it implied that African frameworks resolve all sociopsychological problems. Among Africans, a dialogue is needed in order for the life perspectives of the people in question can be heard. (Mkhize 2014: 34)
It will be important for Leaders advocating for these marginalised groups to be aware of any difficulties they may face. Leadership persona (van der Walt, 2018) is a tool used for an individual to perform a role that may navigate the social and be influenced by the affect clusters of micro-commmunities. This Leadership Persona as stated by van der Walt, is mediated by mass media which needs a decolonialised perspective in order to offer a countervisuality of the continued hyper-visibility of African traditional healers negatively portrayed as practising ‘witchcraft.’
In the context of African Healer, Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi who considers herself ‘as a sangoma, spiritual teacher, life coach and professional African storyteller, poet, writer, dancer and facilitator,’ is at the forefront of inspiring a generation of Youth that will explore and/or reconnect to the African perspective of healing (Ndlanzi, 2018). In this process she performance her Leadership Persona to enlighten people to view life from a different perspective, through bringing about changes in their outlook to allow for holistic healing (Ndlanzi, 2018).
As a licensed Heal Your Life Teacher and certified Organisational Systems Coach, she recently founded The Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi Institute of Spiritual Healing, where she trains healers who are called to this journey of becoming a healer and does public talks on the role of African Spirituality in the 21st century by demystifying myths and stereotypes around indigenous healing practices (Ndlanzi, 2018). Through this process of demystifying the African perspective of healing, more African Healers can be given a platform in the local and global community in order to contribute to showcasing their abilities as healers.
Therefore considering what is implied by Western perspectives on health and how it marginalised indigenous societies, African societies can be empowered to take back the authority of their way of thinking and make African healing or African philosophies relevant into the current world. Hence, ‘[placing] the indigenous people and their agenda into dominant and mainstream discourses, which until recently have been relegated to the ‘side-line,’ (Nemutandani, 2018). This can be achieved optimally through Leaders such as Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi who strive to bring to light the role African Healing has in our society.
Reference List
Mkhize, N (ed). 2014. Introduction to Critical Psychology. South Africa: Juta and Compant, Ltd
Mirzoeff, N. 2011. The Right to Look. 1st ed. North Carolina: Duke University Press.
van der Walt, J. 2018. The Leadership Persona: A Platform for Self-Presentation. University Of Pretoria: Student Affairs & Department of Visual Studies
Du Preez, A. 2015. The Marikana massacre: seeing it all. Safundi. The Journal of South African and American Studies 16(4): 419-442
Ndlanzi, D. 2018. Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi Institute of Spiritual Health. [O]. Available: http://gogodineondlanzi.com/ Accessed 7 December 2018
Nemutandani SM, Hendricks SJ, Mulaudzi MF. Decolonising the mindsets, attitudes and practices of the allopathic and indigenous health practitioners in postcolonial society: An exploratory approach in the management of patients. Afr J Prm Health Care Fam Med. 2018;10(1), a1518. https://doi.org/ 10.4102/phcfm.v10i1.1518
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