Urban health in daily practice
Livelihood, vulnerability and resilience in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2171747 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brigit Obrist (0000-0001-7576-1291, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 275-290 |
| Publication date | 2003-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Anthropology and Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1364-8470 • E-ISSN: 1469-2910 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1364847032000145930 |
| PMID | 26954983 |
| OpenAlex | W1968405260 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
Health is the core value and ultimate goal of health development, yet we know very little about health conceptions in everyday life. Inspired by investigations into lay health concepts in Europe, our study explores experiences and meanings of health in a strikingly different context, namely, in a low-income neighbourhood of an African city. Grounded in ethnographic research in Dar es Salaam, we introduce the concept of 'health practice' and examine health definitions, explanations, and activities of urban Swahili women. Our findings show that representations of health form a set of experiences, meanings and embodied practice centring on the links between body, mind, and living conditions. We suggest that 'livelihood', 'vulnerability' and 'resilience' best capture women's main concerns of health practice in such a setting. All women face an emotional burden of being exposed to urban afflictions and an intellectual and practical burden of overcoming them, but some meet this challenge more successfully than others do. This approach tips the balance towards a positive view of health that has been neglected in medical anthropology. It also opens new lines of inquiry in urban health research by consequently following a resource orientation that acknowledges women's struggle to stay healthy and directs attention to their agency
Agency (philosophy · Ethnography · Geography · Habitus · Livelihood · Social science · Sociology · Swahili · Vulnerability (computing · Anthropology · Child Nutrition and Water Access · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,27 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2016 (13) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |