Traditional medicine and healing (TMH) is a major contributor to the healthcare needs of citizens of many countries, especially in developing countries and among the rural poor. This study of traditional medicine and healing among the Dagomba of Ghana seeks to answer the following questions: How is traditional medicine and healing practiced among the Dagomba of Ghana? What influences people to choose traditional medicine and healing? And how do different actors think traditional medicine and healing can be included in the formal Ghanaian health system? Through in-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions and the use of qualitative questionnaires and personal observation, the study reveals that traditional healing among Dagomba is largely influenced by their culture and health philosophies. They theorize that doro (illness) has both internal and external dimensions with multiple causal factors and that alaafee (good health) is having suhudoo (peace of mind) and a balanced relationship with: oneself, others, the environment and the spiritual world. People’s choice for traditional healing is based on the nature of the illness, its perceived cause and other socio-cultural factors. “Secrecy” is used both as a psychological and political tool by healers to protect their intellectual property rights and to promote suhudoo among patients. Finally, the study finds that to ensure the inclusion of traditional medicine and healers in the formal health system, there must be a very strong collaboration between practitioners of both health systems and a shared understanding of traditional healing practices among western medical practitioners and secondly, a framework for mutual referral of patients should be established as the most viable option for inclusion of TMH.

This thesis, entitled “Changing ways of marrying: A study of the Dhimal marriage ritual of Damak, Nepal” focuses on changes in the marriage patterns of Dhimal indigenous people. Dhimal represent one of the oldest indigenous groups of Nepal, residing in the easternmost lowland since time immemorial. For the study, the choice was made for Damak municipality, which is inhabited mainly by the Dhimal and it is regarded as the fastest growing city of eastern Nepal. The main issue revealed by the study is the massive impacts of modernization, westernization, and urbanization on Dhimal indigenous people of Damak, processes that are expeditiously breaking up age-old tradition and customs. The government’s developmental plans and assimilation projects in the name of ‘one nation’ and ‘one language’ also erode the traditional culture. Further, there are some inevitable factors of political and economic nature, as well as migration, urbanization, education, mass media etc. These factors are also responsible for the cultural changes, in general, and marriage patterns, in particular. Marriage is an important social institution of the Dhimal society and thus integral part of its traditions. It is a valuable ritual among them because it brings community together. Until and unless the community provides moral support, a Dhimal marriage does not get validity. Therefore, for Dhimal people, marriage is not just about the two persons and the two families; it is also about their community. The rituals are a way of celebrating community and reinforce ethnic identity as much as a way of bonding the two people and families. But with the passage of time, the ritualistic forms and ritualists parts of their marriage have changed with the influence of modernization and globalization. Since Dhimal marriage is directly related to the community, the impact on marriage rituals entails an impact Dhimal traditions, culture and ethnic identity, indeed what makes them a distinct community. Thus, any negative impacts occurring in marriage mean breaking the identity and unity among the Dhimal people. That is what I am interested to show with this study. The leading research questions target the past and present social customs, norms and values of the traditional Dhimal community specifically as they relate to customs associated with marrying. What are the observable changes that have occurred in their marriage system now? And how are these linked to the social and cultural relationships and practices that are characteristic of Dhimal society? These questions are addressed throughout the whole thesis based on qualitative field work data collected in Damak Municipality in Nepal in June 2014. Several tools and techniques are used in order to answer the questions in this study. Modernization and ritual theories have been employed to analyse the findings

This study describes how Greenlandic culture is represented in the arts sector of Greenland and Denmark, and furthermore analyses the political processes that those representations relate to. Greenland has been talked about a lot recently in the discussions about climate change, and also in the light of a possible independency of the country in the future. I therefore wanted to find out whether those debates are reflected in museums and art exhibitions depicting Greenland and if so, in what way. During the summer of 2015, I visited three museums and four art exhibitions in Nuuk and Copenhagen and analysed how they described Greenlandic culture. I was left with three main discourses: One being the Greenlander as a hunter – historical colonial views as depicted today; another being the threatened Greenlander in times of climate change, and lastly, Greenlanders as modern people in a country on its way to independence. I argue that the three trends I discovered, have their origin in different socioeconomic or political processes and that a majority of them can be described as having their origin in colonialism.

This master’s thesis explores the health seeking behaviors for children in the Garo indigenous community of Bangladesh drawing on medical pluralism theoretical framework. The thesis is based on one month-long fieldwork in a northern village of the country, Sainamari. In this village, different health care systems co-exist: the scientific medical system (missionary clinics, pharmacist, hospitals, village doctors, clinics), the traditional herbalists (Kabiraj), the spiritual healer (Khamal), and the use of household treatment system like home-remedies. This study analyzes how the parents define illnesses and seek therapies for their children’s health and use their indigenous cultural practices to health maintenance for their future generation. Although bio-medicine became the dominant model in terms of health care practices around the world, the Garo indigenous community still highly depends on self-treatments, like home-remedies and folk healers like the Kabiraj and the Khamal. The findings of this thesis contributes to the understanding of how the Garo people’s child healthcare in Bangladesh works.

This thesis is a cultural document, a study of the Scots pine (Pinus Sylvestris L.) inner bark use, as a source of food and medicine among the Indigenous Sámi people of Northern Fennoscandia. The questions that drove this research centered on the methods and reasons people have developed over time for using Scots pine inner bark. It is still largely considered a ‘food taboo’ and is mostly associated with the years of crop failure. This research is written in indigenous studies with the elements of anthropology and ethnobotany. Using these interdisciplinary fields it becomes possible to locate the effect of such taboos and other burdens of history to the Sámi community. There are three major analytical pillars that hold up the content of this thesis. First, the literary encounters of bark food narratives, that were historically documented across Fennoscandia. Second, detailed ‘bark food’ practices and processes in the Sámi culture. Third, the availability of local resources and ethical dimensions of collecting, exhibiting,, curating and representing such Sámi traditional food related material at a local museum. The thesis argues that the Sámi have been using Scots pine inner bark as a source of food continuously and that whilst this tradition has changed it has not been lost. The key finding is a record of ‘bark food’ tradition continuity among the case study community in Northern Finland. My intention is to contribute to the politics of appreciation, of Indigenous food traditions, recognized as part of their identity and as intangible cultural heritage, including a choir of native voices, both in a historical and a contemporary perspective.

This study reflects on the predicament of the young Tharu Kamalri women after their legal emancipation in 2013, who had formerly been subjected to be the victims of bonded servitude in the name of the Kamlari system prevailing in Dang district of western Nepal. This study presents and analyses the accounts of the lives of young Kamlari women during their years in servitude, along with their experiences after they gained freedom. The freedom they obtained did not always bring the changes they expected. This study assumes that the much awaited freedom could not overcome the legacy of the evils of bonded servitude that existed from historical times, specifically, victimizing the young women of Tharu indigenous community. This study seeks to examine how the historical and systemic injustice and the socio-economic disparity occurred on a multidimensional basis, specifically victimizing the young Tharu women, forcing them to enter into bondage, thus continuing their oppression. While doing so, this study incorporates the theory of intersectionality to explore how the young Tharu women have been forced to be victims of bonded servitude owing to the intersection of multiple oppressions based on their ethnicity, class and gender.