Reviewed summary
African Pharmakon: The Asylum as Shrine from Slavery to the Return
Mental health care in Africa isn’t just a colonial leftover or a straightforward case of oppression versus healing. What if the psychiatric hospital is actually a weird hybrid, part shrine, part institution, deeply rooted in centuries-old African traditions? Nana Osei Quarshie’s “African Pharmakon” throws out the usual story and asks us to rethink how mental health—and control—worked from slavery times to modern Ghana.
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