Teacher: Lisen Dellenborg

Documentary: Living with the Invisibles (Vivre les Invisibles) [2003, 53 min]

This is an interesting documentary on the intersection between different health systems - what happens when people get sick from jinn (spirits). Film-maker Dirk Dumont teamed up with anthropologist Philip Hermans to explore how two Moroccan women living in Europe attempt to rid themselves of problems caused by jinn. The jinn, the “invisibles” of the film’s title, live alongside people and live their own parallel lives. However, some jinn can cause problems, attacking people and causing illness, mental distress, and numerous other kinds of suffering. In the film we follow the women as they seek assistance from traditional healers in both Europe and Morocco. Dealing as it does with the overlapping themes of immigration, religion, and medicine, this film is well suited for classes on any of those topics.

Afterwards, we discuss the film on the basis of Moerman’s and van der Geest’s articles.

Moerman firmly argues that we should stop talking about “placebo effect” as what is inert (placebo pills) can never have an effect. Instead, we should talk about “meaning- response”; the relation between the patient and the healthcare providers, the meaning that patients attach to the healthcare provider’s words, gestures and attitudes – and that the healthcare providers attach to their practice is what has an effect.

Van der Geest describes how magic and rituals are not counterparts to science but at work in scientific practice: “The ritual character of medical treatment constitutes a substantial—but usually ignored, even rejected—part of its efﬁcacy” (p.147).

Moerman, D. E. (2013). Against the ”placebo effect”. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 21:125-130.

Schierenbeck, I., Johansson, P. et al. (2018). Collaboration or renunciation? The role of traditional medicine in mental health care in Rwanda and Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Global Public Health, 13(2):159-172.

Van der Geest, S. (2005). ‘Sacraments’ in the Hospital: Exploring the Magic and Religion of Recovery. Anthropology & Medicine, 12(2):135–150.

Extra reading

Good, B. (1994). Medical Anthropology and the Problem of Belief. I Byron J. Good. Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective. Pages: 7.-24.

(Byron Good’s paper is rather intricate reading; I have chosen it for those of you who are extra interested because of Good’s point that when anthropologists traditionally have said about people they study that “they believe in xx”, the anthropologists risk mis-representing peoples’ relation to xx; people might not believe in, for instance God, but know that God exist. Good points to the ethnocentrism in depicting the other as believing and themselves as knowing: “belief” is generally used in order to describe something that is uncertain or not true, in contrast to “knowledge” - which is relevant for the understanding of various ways of understanding healing).

Moerman 2013 Against_the_placebo_effect_.pdf

van der Geest 2005 Sacraments in the Hospital.pdf

Good_Medical Anthropology and the Problem of Belief_1994.pdf

Schierenbeck et al 2018 traditional medicine in mental health care .pdf