In this book, Rebekah Lee offers a critical introduction to the diverse history of health, healing and illness in sub-Saharan Africa from the 1800s to the present day. Its focus is not simply on disease but rather on how illness and health were understood and managed: by healthcare providers, African patients, their families and communities. Through a sustained interdisciplinary approach, Lee brings to the foreground a cast of actors, institutions and ideas that both profoundly and intimately shaped African health experiences and outcomes. This book guides the reader through a wide range of historical source material, and highlights the theoretical and methodological innovations which have enriched this scholarship. Part One delivers a concise historical overview of African health and illness from the long 'pre-colonial' past through the colonial period and into the present day, providing an understanding of broad patterns - of major disease challenges, experiences of illness, and local and global health interventions - and their persistence or transformation across time. Part Two adopts a 'case study' approach, focusing on specific health challenges in Africa - HIV/AIDS, mental illness, tropical disease and occupational disease - and their unfolding across time and space. Health, Healing and Illness in African History is the first wide-ranging survey of this key topic in African history and the history of health and medicine, and the ideal introduction for students.

In this compelling study, Rebekah Lee explores the process and consequences of settlement through the everyday lives and testimonies of three generations of African women in Cape Town during the apartheid (1948-94) and post-apartheid periods. How did African women experience apartheid? How did they create a sense of belonging in a city that actively denied and resisted their presence? Through detailed analyses of women's management of domestic economies, their participation in township social organizations, their home renovation priorities and patterns of energy use, this study evokes a larger history of gendered and generational struggles over identity, place and belonging. It provides a deeper and more nuanced understanding of African women in apartheid and post-apartheid society, and of urbanization in South Africa. Drawing together scholarship and new methodologies from anthropology, history, human geography and development studies, "African Women and Apartheid" will be valuable to anyone with interests in South Africa, gender, urbanization, the African family, oral history and memory.

In this book, Rebekah Lee offers a critical introduction to the diverse history of health, healing and illness in sub-Saharan Africa from the 1800s to the present day. Its focus is not simply on disease but rather on how illness and health were understood and managed: by healthcare providers, African patients, their families and communities. Through a sustained interdisciplinary approach, Lee brings to the foreground a cast of actors, institutions and ideas that both profoundly and intimately shaped African health experiences and outcomes. This book guides the reader through a wide range of historical source material, and highlights the theoretical and methodological innovations which have enriched this scholarship. Part One delivers a concise historical overview of African health and illness from the long 'pre-colonial' past through the colonial period and into the present day, providing an understanding of broad patterns - of major disease challenges, experiences of illness, and local and global health interventions - and their persistence or transformation across time. Part Two adopts a 'case study' approach, focusing on specific health challenges in Africa - HIV/AIDS, mental illness, tropical disease and occupational disease - and their unfolding across time and space. Health, Healing and Illness in African History is the first wide-ranging survey of this key topic in African history and the history of health and medicine, and the ideal introduction for students.

How did African women experience apartheid? How did they create a sense of belonging in a city that actively denied and resisted their presence? Through detailed analyses of women's management of domestic economies, their participation in township social organizations, their home renovation priorities and patterns of energy use, this study evokes a larger history of gendered and generational struggles over identity, place and belonging. It provides a deeper and more nuanced understanding of African women in apartheid and post-apartheid society, and of urbanization in South Africa.