Healing and morality: A Javanese example

Mark R. Woodward

Social Science & Medicine, 1985, vol. 21, issue 9, 1007-1021

Abstract: Javanese traditional medicine is based on Sufi Muslim notions of personhood, knowledge and magical power. This world view motivates two conflicting modalities of medical practice: one based on the magic powers of curers (dukun), the others on the religiously validated powers of Sufi saints. The association of magical and bio-medical knowledge allows Javanese to interpret traditional and bio-medical cures as components of a unified health care system. Comparison of Javanese medical, religious and political systems suggests that the structural uniformity of cultural domains derives from the hierarchical organization of cultural knowledge and that the study of traditional medicine and medical pluralism can not be undertaken apart from that of world view.

Date: 1985
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(85)90422-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:21:y:1985:i:9:p:1007-1021

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().