Anthropological Narratives of Nodding Disease among the Acholi of Northern Uganda
Abstract
Despite the scientific and specific medical interventions, nodding disease with neither a cure nor plausible explanation to its cause continues to affect the people of Acholi sub region. The disease continues to be a mystery to both the medical professionals and its victims. The World Health Organisation (WHO) affirms no known aetiology. It is so mystical that it affects only children between the ages of five and fifteen years; the disease has only been reported in Acholi sub region in Uganda without a previous history of existence in the area. In spite of the disease’s association to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) war and Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps, other areas like Lango and Teso sub regions affected by the same have not experienced this disease. Nodding disease, therefore, seems to have defeated Western science of biomedicine and needs a different approach to explain its existence. Overtime, African societies, the Acholi inclusive, find solace in their cultural and religious beliefs to explain the existence and treatment of diseases. Using an ethnographic methodological approach as well as cultural construction of disease theoretical perspective, this article analyses the way the people of Acholi visualise, understand and interpret nodding disease in relation to their cultural and religious beliefs.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Abbo, C., Mwaka, A. D., Opar, B. T., & Idro, R. (2019). Qualitative evaluation of the outcomes of care and treatment for children and adolescents with nodding syndrome and other epilepsies in Uganda. Infectious diseases of poverty, 8(1), 30.
Aceng, R. (2018). Statement on Nodding Syndrome in Northern Uganda. Ministry of Health. Kampala. https://www.health.go.ug/document/statement-on-nodding-syndrome-in- northern-uganda/
Adibo, J. (2017). Acholi Indigenous Methods for Healing and Re-integrating Survivors of Violent Conflict into the Community: A Case of Gulu and Kitgum, Northern Uganda. Doctoral thesis. University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.
Akwasi, S. (April, 1985). Answering ‘WHY’-The Ghanaian concept of disease. Contact-Christian medical commission, Number 84. World commission of churches Switzerland.
Allen, T. (1991). Understanding Alice: Uganda’s Holy Spirit Movement in context. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 61(3), 370-399. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1160031
Amone, C., & Muura, O. (2014). British Colonialism and the Creation of Acholi Ethnic Identify in Uganda, 1894 to 1962. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 42(2), 239-257. Doi: 10.1080/03086534.2013.851844
Amone, C. (2015). Constructivism, Instrumentalism and the rise of Acholi ethnic identity in northern Uganda. African Identities, 13(2), 129-143. DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2015.1023255
Atkinson, R.R. (1989). The Evolution of Ethnicity among the Acholi of Uganda; The precolonial phase. Ethnohistory 36(1), 19-43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/482739
Atkinson, R.R. (1994). The Roots of Ethnicity: The Origins of the Acholi of Uganda Before 1800. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/jctt17muh9g
Bemmel, K. (2016). The rise and fall of nodding syndrome in public discourse: an analysis of newspaper coverage in Uganda. Critique of Anthropology, 36(2), 168-196. Doi: 10.1177/0308275x15614635.
Bemmel, K., Derluyn, I., & Stroeken, K. (2014). Nodding syndrome or disease? On the conceptualization of an illness-in-the-making. Ethnicity & Health, 19(1), 100-118, DOI: 10.1080/13557858.2013.780233
Buchmann, K. (2014). ‘You sit in fear’: understanding perceptions of nodding syndrome in post-conflict northern Uganda. Global Health Action 7(1), 25069, DOI: 10.3402/gha.v7.25069
Buscher, K., Komujuni, S., & Ashaba, I. (2018). Humanitarian urbanism in a post conflict aid town: aid agencies and urbanisation in Gulu, northern Uganda. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 12(2), 348-366. Doi: 10.1080/17531055.2018.1456034.
Colebunders, R., Hendy, A., Mokili, J. L., Wamala, J. F., Kaducu, J., Kur, L., Tepage, F., Mandro, M., Mucinya, G., Mambandu, G., Komba, M. Y., Lumaliza, J. L., van Oijen, M., & Laudisoit, A. (2016). Nodding syndrome and epilepsy in onchocerciasis endemic regions: comparing preliminary observations from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with data from Uganda. BMC research notes, 9, 182. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-016-1993-7
Conrad, P., & Barker, K.K. (2010). The Social Construction of Illness: Key Insights and Policy Implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51(S), S67–S79. DOI: 10.1177/0022146510383495 http://jhsb.sagepub.com
Deakin, A. (October 30, 2017). The cultural construction of illness. PMLiVE.http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_intelligence/the_cultural_construction_of_illness_1207564
Echodu, R., Edema, H., Malinga, G.M., Hendy, A., Colebunders, R., Kaducu, M.J., Ovuga, E., & Haesaert, G. (2018). Is nodding syndrome in northern Uganda linked to consumption of mycotoxin contaminated food grains? BMC Research Notes, 11, 678. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-018-3774-y
Eisenberg, L. (1977). Disease and illness. Distinctions between professional and popular ideas of sickness. Culture, medicine and psychiatry, 1(1), 9–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00114808
Feldmeier, H., Komazawa, O., & Moji, K. (2014). Nodding syndrome in Uganda: field observations, challenges and research agenda. Tropical medicine and health, 42(2), 109-114. https://doi.org/10.2149/tmh.2014-S15
Finnstrom, S. (2006). Wars of the past and war in the present: the lord’s resistance movement/army in Uganda. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 76(2), 200-220. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40027109
Foger, K., Stahlberg, G., Sejvar, J., Ovuga, E., Aall, L., Schmutzhard, E., Kaiser, C., & Winkler, A. (2017). Nakalanga syndrome: clinical characteristics, potential causes, and its relationship with recently described nodding syndrome. PLOS neglected tropical diseases, 11(2), e0005201. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005201
Grove, E.N.T. (1919). Customs of the Acholi. Susan Notes and Records, 2(3), 157-182. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41715820
Harlacher, T. (2009). Traditional Ways of Coping with Consequences of Traumatic Stress in Acholi land: Northern Ugandan ethnography from a Western psychological perspective. PhD Thesis. University of Freiburg, Switzerland
Henderson, J. N., & Henderson, L. C. (2002). Cultural construction of disease: A “supernormal” construct of dementia in an American Indian tribe. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 17: 197–212
Hewlett, B.S., & Amola, R. P. (2003). Cultural Contexts of Ebola in Northern Uganda. Emerging infectious diseases, 9(10), 1242-1248. doi: 10.3201/eid0910.020493
Irani, J., Rujumba, J., Mwaka, A. D., Arach, J., Lanyuru, D., Idro, R., et al. (2019). "Those who died are the ones that are cured". Walking the political tightrope of Nodding Syndrome in northern Uganda: Emerging challenges for research and policy. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 13(6): e0007344. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007344
Isiko, A. P. (2018). Gender Roles in Traditional Healing Practices in Busoga. PhD Thesis. Leiden.
Isiko, A. P. (2020). Religious construction of disease: An exploratory appraisal of religious responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Uganda. Journal of African Studies and Development 12(3),77-96.
Kagumire, R. (February 18, 2009). In burial ceremonies, Uganda’s north hopes for a new start. The Independent Magazine. www.independent.co.ug.
Kembel, A.S. (2015). When the Dead Are Not Silent: The Investigation of Cultural Perspectives Concerning Improper Burials in Northern Uganda. Masters’ thesis. University of Tennessee. https://trace.tenenessee.edu/utk-gradthese/3486
Kitara, L., & Amone, C. (2012). Perception of the population in Northern Uganda to nodding syndrome. Journal of medicine and medical sciences 3(7), 464-470.
Kitara, L., & Gazda, S. (2017). Nodding Syndrome in Northern Uganda, Treatment and Rehabilitation Outcomes. World Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, 6(14),150-169.
Kitara, L.D., Mwaka, D.A., Anywar, A.D., Uwonda, G., Abwang, B., & Kigonya, E. (2013). Nodding syndrome (NS) in northern Uganda: A probable metabolic disorder. British journal of medicine and medical research, 3(4), 2054-2068.
Kleinman, A. (1978). Concepts and a Model for the Composition of Medical Systems as Cultural Systems. Social Science and Medicine, (2), 85-93.
Komujuni, S., & Buscher, K. (2020). In search of chiefly authority in post aid Acholi land: transformations of customary authorities in northern Uganda. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 14(1), 103-124. Doi: 10.1080/17531055.2019.1711312
Langdon, E.J., & Wiik, F.B. (2010). Anthropology, Health and Illness: An Introduction to the Concept of Culture Applied to the Health Sciences. Rev. Latino-Am. Enfermagem18(3):459-66. www.eerp.usp.br/rlae
Latigo, J.O. (2008). Northern Uganda: Tradition based practices in the Acholi region; In Huyse, L., & Salter, M (eds.), Traditional Justice and reconciliation after violent conflict. pp. 85-119. Institute for democracy and electoral assistance. Stockholm.
Manguvo, A., & Mafuvadze, B. (2015). The impact of traditional and religious practices on the spread of Ebola in West Africa: time for a strategic shift. The Pan African medical journal, 22(1),9. https://doi.org/10.11694/pamj.supp.2015.22.1.6190
McGann, E. (2015). The Plight of the Lucluc: Examining the Deadly Mystery of Nodding Syndrome. Honors thesis. Liberty University.
Mitchell, K.B., Kornfeld, J., Adiama, J., Ovuga, E., Kamstra, J., Winkler, A.S., Mugenyi, A., & Schmutzhard, E. (2013). Epilepsy & Behaviour, 26(1), 22-24. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.10.030
Moll-Rocek, J. (2016). Healing in Community: Three Acholi Plant Medicines. Native Seeds Project. https://wildff.org/healing-community-three-acholi-plant-medicines/
Ocaya, V. (1988). Ultimate Reality and Meaning According to the Acholi of Uganda. Ultimate Reality and Meaning, 11(1), 11-22. Doi: 10.3138/uram.11.1.11
Odhiambo A., Ouso T., & Williams F.M. (2003). A History of East Africa: Traditional concept of disease. Essex Reason, Education Ltd.
Olum, S., Scolding, P., Hardy, C., Obol, J., & Scolding, N. J. (2020). Nodding syndrome: a concise review. Brain communications, 2(1), fcaa037. https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcaa037
Ongaya, K., Aturinde, A., Farnaghi, M., Mansourian, A., Maiga, G., Oyo, B. and Bagarukayo, E. (2020) Spatiotemporal Analysis of Nodding Syndrome in Northern Uganda 1990-2014. Health, 12, 180-193. https://doi.org/10.4236/health.2020.122015
Sontag, S. (1978). Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Soumonni, E. (2012). Disease, religion and medicine: smallpox in nineteenth-century Benin. História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos, 19(1), 35-45. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-59702012000500003.
UBOS. (2016). The National Population and Housing Census report 2014. Main Report. Kampala, Uganda.
Weegen, K. (2014). Shifting Meanings of Illness: An anthropological study of nodding syndrome in Tanzania. Master’s thesis. Utrecht University-Netherlands.
White, P. (2015). The concept of diseases and healthcare in African Traditional Religion in Ghana. University of Pretoria. South Africa.
Whitmre, L. (2013). The Creation and Evolution of the Acholi Ethnic Identity. Master’s thesis. Clemson University. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/1681
WHO. (2012). International scientific meeting on nodding Syndrome-Kampala, Uganda (30 July-1 August 2012): Meeting Report. World Health Organisation. Geneva.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v8i4.2554
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2021 International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
https://ijmmu.com
editor@ijmmu.com
facebook.com/ijmmu
Copyright © 2014-2018 IJMMU. All rights reserved.