Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

What is a culturally appropriate intervention? What is a "culturally appropriate" AIDS intervention? What is a "culturally appropriate" safe motherhood intervention? How do we deal with the critique of "medicalization of sexuality" vs the "sexualization of consumption"? How do find the right path, the balance between a development - commercial - government - multilateral - private sector collaboration? Is the territory of health and sex still uncharted?  Are all local values and meanings "cultural" and should we consider all services, methods, models to be "appropriate"? What "can" be done and what "should" be done? Assessments of "can" and "should" are bound up with views of the "culture" in question, assessments of its boundaries, its integrity, its authenticity, its very location "in" some places, some practices and some knowledges but not in others. If this is tru...

"Believe it or not, rice can diagnose your ailment" Source : OTV Bureau published on : 3/18/2009 11:32:24 AM Rayagada: You must have heard of tribal people resorting to medicinal plants to cure themselves of different diseases. Witchcraft is another remedy for these illiterate inhabitants. Now, rice can also do wonders on patients.    Believe it or not, Dandasi Senapati, a tribal ‘doctor’, as he is widely called, of Sirikana village near the district headquarters town of Rayagada gave a queer definition of medical science by adopting the unique healing method - rice treatment - in the tribal dominated region. Be it superstition or firm faith, Senapati’s rice treatment has many takers in the locality.    Senapati’s healing style is quite funny. Patients are asked to bring a handful of husk-free rice and Rs 20 as doctor’s fee with them. And then Senapati prescribes medicine, mostly medicinal herbs and shrubs for any physical ailment.    What is more interesting is the diagnosis...

I grew up in a family of five that included my parents. I would say that it is an average family size in Bangladesh. Growing up, I was close to my parents, especially to my mother, although the idea of calling my mother my best friend (or even friend for that matter) never occurred to me. I was quite terrified of my father, as he would frequently ask me to memorize chapters from my text books all the time. For example, before going out to work in the morning, he would ask me to memorize chapters one through three in my physics, chemistry, and biology books. "When I come back form work in the afternoon, I will test you on your memorizations" he would say. So every second of the passing clock made me more worried as that would bring me closer to seeing my father again. But still, I felt close to both my parents - I loved them and respected them and I knew they will be there for me when I needed them. And still, they were not my friends in the way we use the word 'friend...

After going through this forest of pages, I am at a loss as to where to anchor my BLOG post and how do I articulate so that I am able to talk about many of the things I have read.  In the readings about Indian Ayurveda, dominant and erased cosmologies, local politics with global connections, Chinese geomancy, KFD as a disease of development, commodification of medicines, health services, identities.....what comes across is the complexities, the dimensions and their constant movement. Achieving a healthy status is a complex exercise. In our normal day to day lives, we unconsciously/ consciously perform a set of actions located within our culture, structure and agency and lay claim to our "health". The understanding of the complexity is important to us as health practitioners when we strive to improve the health of others through our campaigns, theories, arguments and other contritions.  Dutta (2008) in his "pathways to curing and healing" chapter lays down such case ...

Two things have been coming to my mind so far after having read all of the articles for this week: For one, all the stories that talked about health tradition and believes in other cultures reminded me of something we do in Germany when someone suffers from diarrhea. We are told to eat brezels and drink coca cola. I have not once in my life wondered if these two medical advices had a deeper biological meaning, with that said, you can tell I am already trying to relate to Westernized medicine because that's what I was brought up with. I came to thinking, the salt on the brezels might help the loss of water in the body, maybe the sugar in the coke is supposed to bring you easy energy? Or are those two medical advices supposed to even be closely related to anything physical, but are rather a tradition that has survived for many many years because people believed in their powers? Therefore, relating to the readings which I found very interesting, I learned many new things when it comes...

The story that I enjoyed reading the most and that probably stimulated my thinking the most was Hawkins' story about Dr. Lewis and Mr. Pearsall. I pondered for a while over the statement or rather justification that Dr. Lewis used to make himself feel better after he first told Mr. Pearsall about his treatment option: "He didn't lie to Mr. Pearsall about those side effects, because Mr. Pearsall didn't ask." It make me think about how may people I know that go by the motto "don't ask, don't tell" and the fact that they can live and deal with their consciousness of NOT telling. There has to be a cognitive process that fights your inner feeling of what is right (can we call that morals or maybe instinct) and justifies your actions. Are those morals/instincts learned or do they reside in all of us naturally? Do your emotions influence your decision-making and your justifications when you have to make choices in life? According to Hawkins in case of D...

The different narratives of a situation by the different people involved in it reminded me of a movie very close to my heart, Rashomon . As Connelly (2002) succintly puts it, the decision to retell a story will depend on the personal reasons/ motivations of the reteller. In today's world of health communication we have so many competing narratives. The search for the "real" or "right" narrative is not important but what's important is not to ignore these stories. Narratives provide us invaluable insights into a human beings life, suffering, existence, surrounding, health. In many ways it provides us a ground to move ahead, take decisions.  In emergency response, in the first 48 hours, usually teams do not find much records or information as most records are affected and the normal information channels are in a disarray and non functional. So, the way the response team moves ahead is by collecting narratives: "so please tell us how did the flood waters c...