Rosemary J. Jolly

Framing intercultural health encounters in Ubuntu: The case of an integrated GBV and HIV intervention in KwaZulu-Natal 

Rosemary J. Jolly

Pennsylvania State University

rjj14@psu.edu

Here I look at what happens when intercultural encounters in health prevention assume the norm of the Western human – what critical race theorist, Sylvia Wynter calls the “genre of Man” – to prevail over Indigenous formations of the human and their relation to others in the universe. I explore generative mistakes in terminology, address and meaning to demonstrate that one cannot “Do no Harm” unless one first understands what one doesn’t know about the Indigenous culture (or cultures) in which one works. I outline the differences between the normative Western human, with his assumption of anthropocentrism and radical independence, from the practices of Ubuntu in deep rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. These practices of Ubuntu entail both Christianized and non-Christian Ubuntu working alongside one another without contradiction. The communities in the area may and often do, dual use value systems that would seem contradictory to Western rationality, just as HIV positive clients in the area dual use Indigenous and Western medical systems. I look at instructive mistakes/missteps in medical terminology, diagnosis, and address to demonstrate not simply the ineffectiveness, but the actual damage that Western health approaches can inflict upon communities they are purportedly helping. What implications does this have for the training of physicians who seek to work in the Global South and preventative health messaging? Can we come to see the purported non-compatibility, or discordance, of Western medical science and Indigenous cosmology in different ways, by using the Nguni weltanschauung of Ubuntu itself?

BIOGRAPHY

Rosemary J.Jolly's career spanned the Humanities through her focus on comparative global literatures and cultures, and prevention science, specifically in the areas of HIV and gender-based violence.  She has led teams in sub-saharan Africa seeking to integrate gender-based violence prevention into HIV/AIDS prevention and care.  She is the author of numerous articles in both fields.  Her most recent monograph is The Effluent Eye: Narratives for Decolonial Right-making (Minnesota University Press, 2024). She leads community-based workshops on Theater for the Oppressed and Bodymapping. She is Sparks Chair of Literature and Human Rights at the College of the Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, in the USA.