Hi everyone
I came across this recent paper. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00856401.2026.2622296 [*see note below]
This is not directly on traditional healers. It looks at the role of non licensed medical practitioners in the community in Indian settings. However this brings forth the role of "Conviviality" as a feature of care. There may lessons that we can draw for working at a community level
As the author states:
"Conviviality, I argue, helps shift the focus from medical know-how and rational expertise to the affective dimensions of care that are crucial to the formation of trusting clinical relations. However, as discussed in the section above, conviviality in Daktars’ clinics is always fragile, incomplete and unstable, and is susceptible to being undermined by countervailing tendencies of profit-making, stigma and violence. Its realisation, therefore, requires continual effort."
Would love to know if this resonates in other communities as well
Regards
Aparna
PatientsEngage
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Aparna Mittal
Founder and CEO
PatientsEngage
www.patientsengage.com
INFORM || ENGAGE || EMPOWER
HIFA profile: Aparna Mittal is a Patient Advocate and Founder/ CEO, PatientsEngage Health Foundation, India and Singapore. Professional interests: Building Health Literacy and an Informed Community, Advocating for persons with lived experience to be part of shared decision making as well as policy making. Email address: aparna.mittal AT patientsengage.com
[Note from HIFA moderator (NPW): Thank you Aparna for this interesting paper. Here is the abstract:
'Clinical encounters in India are often marked by suspicion between patients and practitioners. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the affective environments of clinics run by unlicensed medical practitioners—or daktars (doctors)—in Delhi, outlining ‘conviviality’ as a feature of care in these settings. Dismissed as ‘quacks’ by elites, daktars are popular sources of healthcare for the city’s poor, with whom they are entangled in neighbourly relations. Drawing on ethnographic research, the paper examines how conviviality in the clinic is shaped by material conditions and relational effort. It highlights how conviviality attenuates tensions underpinning clinical encounters, while acknowledging its limits. Analysing daktars’ practices, it posits conviviality as both an affective outcome of their clinical work and the condition of possibility for emotions like trust to emerge. Moving beyond negative framings of ‘mistrust’ within clinical settings in India, the paper foregrounds conviviality as a key aspect of daktars’ healthcare provision.']