Claiming the Public Soul

Representations of Qur'anic Healing and Psychiatry in the Egyptian Print Media

Bibliographic Data

ID2394744
AuthorsElizabeth M Coker (American University in Cairo, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume46
Issue4
Pages672-694
Publication date2009-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTranscultural Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4615 • E-ISSN: 1461-7471
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363461509351390
PMID20028683
OpenAlexW1982191879
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited21

Egyptian society is engaged in a culture-wide debate over definitions of abnormality, local constructions of which are rooted in ideas about the body and the soul in relation to society as a whole. This is reflected in the continuing recourse to religious healers or texts, as well as in heated debates over the moral, social, religious and legal status of religious healers, in particular the relatively recent and more orthodox "Qur'anic healers." The present study used a primarily qualitative analysis of Egyptian newspaper articles to explore media portrayals of this debate with a focus on how these contradictory cultural themes are situated and contested. The results show that psychiatric hegemony is reflected in media language that gives primacy to certain discourses over others, but that religious healing and religion in general exert an equal, if not more powerful influence on the form of these media portrayals. Different strategies used to negotiate the tensions between Qur'anic healing and psychiatry by those on both sides of the argument come across in the ways these arguments are portrayed in the media

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Hegemony · Islam · Media studies · Negotiation · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Situated · Social science · Sociology · Soul · Education and Islamic Studies · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology