Programme de bourses "Echanges Universitaires"
Swiss Missions and the Tanzania health system: An explorative study to build research capacities in the history of health and medicine.
Given the enormous importance of health to the wellbeing of human beings, the history of health systems in Africa is heavily underresearched. With the end of colonialism, the development of health systems became a prime duty for independent African states and a matter of international concern. Neglected by governments during most of the colonial era, the development of rural health care is a central aspect of these tasks. Mission societies were the first - and for a long time the prime - providers of health services in rural areas. Rural health care in many African countries today relies on hospitals, clinics and dispensaries established by missionary societies.
This project fosters research and networking activities for ongoing and future research on the social history of health care in Tanzania. Built on research interest at the University of Basel and Dar es Salaam, we base this specific collaboration on the history of Switzerland’s activities in health services in Tanganyika/Tanzania. We will highlight the value of sources related to these activites in Tanzania with an aim to foster interest in using ‘Swiss’ sources to work on the history of medicine, health and health services in Tanzania, or Africa in general. With this project we seek to establish immediate and longterm cooperation (in research and teaching) between the department of History at the University of Dar es Salaam and the Department of History at the University of Basel as a member of the Centre for African Studies Basel. As such, the project is also integrated into a program to establish a larger network with central and southeastern African Universities’ History departments.
With its focus on Tanzania, this project engages in a field where discussion can profit from a wealth of material and hands-on experience. The long-term value of research into the history of health and health service provision lies in fostering health planners’ and practitioners’ awareness of the importance of historical factors for their work.
Fields of activities:
1) Locating archival holdings; Description of holdings, their scope and their value for research
Archival sources are key to researching the history of health and health systems in Africa. We will identify, locate and describe different sets of archives in Tanzania:
Mission society archives in Tanzania; Archives of mission-run health care institutions; Private ‘archives’/collections in Tanzania (property of individual health care practitioners, or long-serving missionary personnel living in Tanzania); State-run health care institutions; the Swiss Development Cooperation’s documentation; Academic holdings in Tanzania. In the course of this project, in-depth archival research will not be done. Rather we will assess the importance of holdings for our project. No less important, we also want to make holders and possible researchers aware of the material housed in these archives and we want to discuss and exchange on possible research activities which take these archives as part of their basic data.
2) Building a foundation for an oral history project on the history of health and health services in the Ulanga region in Tanzania
Another key source for the history of health and health systems in Africa is that of oral testimony. Oral history provides key information in many areas, where written sources are myopic or even blind. This is particularly true for the responses of patients and for those of the members of local African societies. It is also true for an unbiased understanding of local healing practices administered by ‘traditional’/’indigenous’ healers.
Oral testimonies need to be ‘collected’ in the framework of careful research. Social and cultural capacities are as crucial as is mastering language. In doing oral history it is rewarding to combine local historians and students with outsiders. Such an approach calls for a collaboration of the Swiss researcher(s) with Tanzanian academics. This project will form the basis for a collaborative effort in collecting oral history data relating to the history of health in the Ulanga region.
3) Networking for future research in the history of Tanzania’s health system.
A network for research will be developed on the basis of the specific research topic. This network will include both researchers and members of academic institutions, as well as current and former health practitioners.
Partners:
|
Prof. Patrick Harries |
Marcel Dreier, Lic. phil.I |
Yusuf Q. Lawi |