Negotiating Mistrust: Patients and Healers Across Traditional, Islamic, and Biomedical Health Sectors of Niger (Contemporary Ethnography)

Unravels the complexity of pervasive mistrust across the primary medical sectors of Niger Negotiating Mistrust examines a wide diversity of patients and healers-and interactions between them-in Niamey, Niger through the analytical prism of mistrust.It offers a holistic study of the medical landscape in Niamey by focusing on the intersections between three medical sectors: traditional, Islamic, and biomedical. Scott M. Youngstedt asserts that nuanced analysis of the interplay between mistrust and trust is key to understanding the decisions that health-seeking Nigériens make among the multiple options available to them, while recognizing that in one of the world's very poorest countries, many forms of biomedical care-and some traditional and Islamic medicine-are unaffordable to most people.He demonstrates that mistrust and trust are not mutually exclusive, usually not absolute but exist on a fluid continuum, involve cognitive and affective dimensions, and are shaped by shifting historica