Medical Legitimacy
Childbirth, Pluralism, and Professionalization in Nigeria's Faith-Based Aladura Birthing Homes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8980935 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ogechukwu E Williams (0000-0002-9920-0787, Creighton University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 96-111 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of African History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0021853723000026 |
| OpenAlex | W4323363150 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 26 |
In the wake of the Aladura (prayer people) religious movement of the late 1920s, a site of childbirth that relied primarily on faith healing emerged in Nigeria under the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC). This practice of faith-based delivery remained informal until 1959 when it evolved into a permanent structure with a professional guild of midwives, codified practices, and trained personnel. This article explores the advent of CAC's faith-based maternity practice, notably its faith home midwifery school, and how the faith home transformed its identity from the informal realms of religious healing to a recognized religious entity that offered primary maternity care based on the principles of faith healing. By examining the professionalization of Aladura faith homes, I highlight questions of legitimacy allocation in postcolonial Africa and how CAC navigated this process by courting legitimacy from state-backed institutions and sociocultural frameworks
Faith · Faith healing · Legitimacy · Pluralism (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Prayer · Professionalization · Social science · Sociology · Theology · Gender Studies · Global Maternal and Child Health · Law · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious studies
Aladura
The Social basis of health and healing in Africa
Politics of the Womb
Some features of language use in Yoruba traditional medicine
Therapeutic Strategies in African Religions
Culture and Colonial Medicine
The social construction of the legitimacy of Christian healing in Abidjan
Conjoined to Empire
The influenza pandemic of 1918–19 and the spread of cassava cultivation on the lower Niger
Writing Medical Authority
Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs
Traditional medicine and the stakes of legitimation in Senegal
She will not be listened to in public
A History of the Nigerian Health Services
Church-based obstetric care in a Yoruba community, Nigeria
Background to the development of health services in Nigeria
Wandering a Gendered Wilderness
Spirit, Structure, and Flesh
Faith Tabernacle Congregation and the Emergence of Pentecostalism in Colonial Nigeria, 1910s-1941
Aladura Christianity
Intimate Colonialism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |