Paper
Towards a reconceptualization of relational health: Health and more-than-human entanglements in Candomblé
presenters
Daniela Calvo
Nationality: Italy
Residence: Japan
Kyoto University (Japan)
Presence:Face to Face/ On Site
Keywords:
health; more-than-human relations; Afro-Brazilian religions; Candomblé;
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to contribute to thinking health in relational terms, through the multiple relations that humans entertain with other more-than-human beings – including humans and other beings, considered as pertaining to the “natural realm” like animals, plants, minerals, forests, the earth etc.; those of the “technological realm” like objects, artifacts, medical instruments etc., and those of the “spiritual realm” like spirits, ancestors, divinities and forces – through an ethnographic study of the process of health and illness in Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion.
I intend to proceed in the direction of pioneer works, such as Sarah Elton’s study of plants as health-supporting actors, that proposes to use the term “relational health” to describe how health is produced through interdependencies.
Anthropology started to blur the borders between the biological and the social, the human and the non-human, and to consider health in a posthuman perspective, examining how more-than-human beings entwine and intermingle with one another, and participate in the process of health and illness.
Since Candomblé’s ontology suggests interconnectivity, interdependence, and mutual in-becomings among more-than-human beings, it provides an intriguing framework for thinking about health and more-than-human entanglements, and to conceptualize health in relational terms. In fact, humans, and, more generally, more-than-human beings, are conceived and treated, in Candomblé, through dimensions like relationality, incompleteness and conviviality, translation, affect, mutual in-becomings and participation in the flows of life and materials, and porosity of ontological borders.
Health (intended in a broad sense, including biopsychosocial, ecological, economic and spiritual aspects, and related to participation with forces and energies) is impacted by more-than-human relations in different ways, that participate in a meshwork of forces, interdependencies and in-becomings. Henceforth, more-than-human beings mutually influence each other in the process of health and illness and participate in establishing a balance of forces, relationships and materials.