back to home

Interview with Samuel Bewiadzi Akakpo, visiting PhD student

written by Victoria Lewis
03/04/23

This week marks the arrival of Samuel Bewiadzi Akakpo as a visiting PhD student, who will be joining the team at the Making Clinical Sense Project. To kick off his visit, Victoria Lewis, a research assistant at the Making Clinical Sense Project, took the opportunity to interview Mr. Akakpo. In this interview we learn more about Samuel’s research interests, previous work, and unique perspectives on the field.

Samuel Bewiadzi Akakpo is a visiting PhD student at Maastricht University and was awarded a scholarship within the Making Clinical Sense project led by Anna Harris. Samuel has been a researcher in the field of medical anthropology for seven years and primarily focuses on Traditional Bone Setting in indigenous Ghanaian societies (Ewe and Nawuri ethnic groups), medical terminologies of the Ewe, cross-border patient mobility and access to healthcare along the Aflao-Lome Bordeland, and the practice of traditional medicine and indigenous knowledge systems of health and healthcare among the Ewe of Ghana.

Victoria Lewis is a master’s student at Maastricht University studying Globalisation and Development within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She has a background in anthropology and is currently researching the use of traditional ecological knowledge within conservation policy in the context of Suriname.

Victoria Lewis (VL): Your research focuses on traditional knowledge systems and practice, specifically in Ghana. So why is it important that we are knowledgeable of this in the context of Ghana when we apply it to medical education?

Samuel Bewiadzi Akakpo (SBA): So, you see, the main healthcare systems are very pluralistic, in the sense that we have been exposed to Western models of healthcare, and so a lot of hospitals, clinics and health centers are being constructed across the country, where we’ve been made to understand that Western healthcare models are very reliable. You have very competent healthcare professionals who have been trained in medicine, Nurses and physiotherapists, who have that kind of broad-based knowledge to attend to you in all aspects of your life, especially when health issues are concerned. But we also understand that beyond that, there are indigenous knowledge systems, which also play very critical roles in ensuring stable health in our society. Because prior to the emergence of biomedicine, those who laid the foundation for healthcare were the traditional medicine practitioners. And so once we have the doctors and the nurses in the hospital, in our community, we have people like priests, priestesses, and traditional birth attendants. We have divinests, and every while we have the orthopedic surgeon in the hospital at the community level. And we have traditional bone setters. So practically whatever goes on in the hospital in terms of in healthcare, actually, we have that kind of replication of that in the community. These two practitioners use different models of operating and they have different policies that we may use. Those in the hospital believe in the scientific method, where everything has to be proven, but those at the society or the community level, they understand health, diseases, and illnesses, but they are processing from a different perspective because they look at it from the cultural background. They look at it from the premises that persons and their belief systems are part of their environment. So that also informs their health seeking behavior, and the approaches that they should adopt in seeking healthcare.

The essence is that over 70% of the Ghanaian population live in rural areas. Within these rural areas, some of these orthodox medicine facilities are not there. Like the hospitals, the clinics and the health centers. There are some communities in Ghana that don’t even have a clinic. And so you don’t expect them to go to a clinic when they fall sick. So what you have to do is to depend on their indigenous knowledge systems. Their knowledge in herbs, their knowledge in the use of mineral substances to treat the various ailments and diseases that you may. Fortunately for them, there are a number of times and medicine practitioners who operate within these rural communities without hospitals. So once you don’t have a hospital, you don’t have any other alternative than to go and patronize the services of the traditional medicine practitioner.

The rural people believe in the competence, the efficacy of the health, the medicine and mineral substances that these practitioners use in dealing with their problems. And they also believe that every issue that deals with illness and diseases has a spiritual interpretation. So some of these diviners and priests, while they will provide you with the help to deal with the physical aspects of the ailments, will also go beyond the physical into the spiritual realm to acquire from the spiritual domain as to what the causes are. So if there is the need for some clarification, right, some sacrifices, libations and prayers to be made, to deal with the issues spiritually that has to be done. And it comes from the traditional medicine practitioners who are the gatekeepers of health and healthcare within the rural areas.

So, you will see about 60% of Ghanaians who patronize the services of traditional medicine practitioners. I argued earlier that the Ghanaian healthcare system is pluralistic or syncretic, in the sense that people blame the two: Western knowledge as against African indigenous knowledge systems. And so that has been the health domain and environment a lot of people operate in. So it becomes very important for us to expose this type of knowledge to people to understand that the Ghanaian healthcare system is not as skewed to one direction, but rather the multiplicity of practitioners and knowledge systems that can use a lot in dealing with healthcare issues.

VL: There’s this obvious difference between the health care system in Ghana as opposed to a country in the West, where indigenous knowledge is not valued, even though it’s there.

 SBA: Exactly, yes, it’s not valued. But in our context, it’s highly valued. Because there are certain diseases that the Orthodox medicine practitioners cannot deal with. And we believe that it’s not every disease that goes to the hospital. Some of them must, no matter what the situation they must be dealt with, at the community level. So sometimes there are certain diseases that want to go for, say you look at the symptoms of the disease and realize, no, this is not the hospital issue. And so you have to look for an alternative medicine, and what we mean by alternative is that for other practitioners who have knowledge in that type of disease that you are suffering from, they will now explore the problem with a diagnosis, and then find a better and lasting therapeutic solution to your problem.

But while this knowledge is not probable in the West because they don’t believe in the spiritual or psychic domain of health and healthcare, for us in our context, here in Ghana, we believe that diseases go beyond the biological and physiological framework into much deeper spiritual dimension, because the causes of disease may either be physical or spiritual. So no matter what the situation, you might want to blend the two.

VL: It’s very interesting. So many people are not aware of this. Especially in the West. With this knowledge, have you found it to be important within your research in development and governance?

SBA: One major challenge confronting this traditional knowledge is that practitioners don’t have that recognition from the government assistance now, even though the government has made some policy documents to regulate the activities, the policies have not been implemented to benefit them. So it’s making their will very very difficult in the sense that they are that they are not legally recognized to operate within the society. And so that has been a very big challenge to that. But with my research into these areas, we are breaking the grounds and a lot of them are getting the recognition and registration that they need in the various administrative districts in the Volta Region.

 

What I’m doing now is currently in the Volta Region, because I can’t go to other regions because of a lot of constraints. But within the indigenous environment, I’ve started some advocacy work, where we are bringing all these types of medicine practitioners together. And we have started registering them within the various administrative districts so that they can get the legal recognition from the central government to operate within the various communities. So that’s what we’ve done. But on the other side of the research work, it has boosted my morale to continue to research into health and healthcare issues. And it is even to understand the complexities of health seeking behavior in our societies because I’ve met a lot of people who tell me that they’ve gone to the hospital to seek medical care, and by the end of the day they end up in the shrine of a priest to continue to seek, what? Healthcare.

So all along I thought that’s what you foresee, it’s all about the hospital. I’ve come to realize that it’s not only about the hospital, that it goes beyond hospital. People will go to the hospital, but also visit, what? Traditional medicine practitioners. People who go to the hospital, they are given scientific medicine and drugs, but go back to them and you find camps within their various environments. So they explore both models to deal with their problems and it is very, very interesting research into this particular field. So that’s how come I eventually had to settle on traditional bone setting for my PhD work.

VL: What is the lasting impression that you want to leave on people here? On the socio-cultural dynamics of Ghana?

SBA: The last impression I want to leave on people here is to understand our culture, our way of life, how we understand issues of health and healthcare, the importance of culture to our daily survival, because you cannot detach the African people, the Ghanaian people from their culture, because in every aspect of our lives, be it politics, be it social, be it economic, every quarter has a role to play. And so in our music and dancing, now even the language itself, there is a lot of cultural elements even in our contemporary governance. At the state, there are cultural elements in there. So the lasting impression that I want to live on the people of the Netherlands is to showcase the Ghanaian culture extensively in terms of our cultural practices, in terms of the healthcare systems that we have, in terms of the popular health culture and domestic health care practices. How we can blend Ghanaian healthcare systems with the Western healthcare systems, and how the cultural and historical conditions of Ghana shape our medical practices and policies in contemporary times.

 

Read the full interview here.

filter entries
Educational activity

Kids medical school

by Janna Vink
August 21, 2023

Our Legacy Film

by Anna Harris
July 11, 2023
Conference

A festival in Limburg

by Annie Zeng
July 8, 2023
Educational activity

Workshopping eyes

by Remco Poeliejoe
July 6, 2023
Publication

Review of the book “A Sensory Education”

by Janna Vink
June 27, 2023
Educational activity

Inclusive bodies?

by Giuliana Brancaleone
June 20, 2023
Publication

New publication: Architecture for anatomy

by Janna Vink
June 2, 2023
Publication

New publication: Sensory probes in fieldwork

by Janna Vink
June 1, 2023
Publication

Reviews of “Stethoscope”

by Janna Vink
May 3, 2023
Event

Making Together

by Janna Vink
April 19, 2023
Interview

Operation Mango: A conversation

by Janna Vink
April 14, 2023
Talk

 Lessons of imagination

by Janna Vink
April 7, 2023
Interview

Interview with Samuel Bewiadzi Akakpo, visiting PhD student

by Victoria Lewis
April 3, 2023
Educational activity

MCS in, or rather, out of the classroom

by Anna Harris
March 17, 2023
Article

Teaching the normal and the pathological

by Janna Vink
March 13, 2023
Talk

Coffee talk on sensory data

by Janna Vink
March 3, 2023
Event

Exhibition opening of Seeing ‘Normal’

by Janna Vink
February 17, 2023
Publication

New journal article by Anna Harris: Gridding bodies

by Janna Vink
February 9, 2023
Publication

New book published: Stethoscope

by Janna Vink
February 3, 2023
Event

Making Sense of Medicine Book Launch

by Janna Vink
January 27, 2023

Introducing Fringe Editions

by Anna Harris
October 20, 2022
Grant

Scholarship for Ghanaian PhD open

by Anna Harris
October 7, 2022
Publication

Our edited book has arrived

by MCS team
September 20, 2022
Publication

Writing with insects

by Anna Harris
September 8, 2022
Publication

Summer project: How to make a cyanometer

by Anna Harris
August 4, 2022
Event

Learning in gardens

by Anna Harris
July 9, 2022
Publication

Library exhibition and essay on stethoscope

by Anna Harris
December 22, 2021
Grant

Two new grants on the senses

by Anna Harris
December 20, 2021
Publication

Sensory lecture series essay

by Anna Harris
December 8, 2021
Publication

Scoping the Health Humanities curricula

by Anna Harris
December 1, 2021
Prize

Clinical dinner

by Anna Harris
November 16, 2021
Publication

Stitching methods and memories

by Anna Harris
November 2, 2021
Publication

Making measuring bodies

by Anna Harris
October 18, 2021
Multimedia

Physical examination fruit salad

by Anna Harris
May 20, 2021
Publication

Digital-sensory work

by Anna Harris
May 4, 2021
Publication

Germs, phosphorescence and solastalgia

by Candida Sánchez Burmester
April 28, 2021
Publication

Mushroom hunting skills valuable to future doctors

by Candida Sánchez Burmester
April 20, 2021
Publication

A fabric essay on anatomy education

by Anna Harris
April 13, 2021
Inspiration

The best laid plans often actually have quite an effect

by John Nott
February 19, 2021
Publication

A sensory education

by Anna Harris
February 11, 2021
Publication

Writing as a Craft

by Candida Sánchez Burmester
February 3, 2021
Writing workshop

Warm Memories of the Writing Retreat

by Candida Sánchez Burmester
November 9, 2020
Event

Dissecting touch

by Anna Harris
October 26, 2020
Publication

Postcards from the edge of another time

by MCS team
October 14, 2020
Event

Embodied meeting

by Anna Harris
October 5, 2020
Publication

Digital stethoscopes

by Anna Harris
August 26, 2020
Conference

Crafting Medicine: A Sensory Exploration of Three Medical Schools

by MCS team
August 19, 2020
Conference

Micro-histories in a jar

by Anna Harris
August 13, 2020
Inspiration

Exquisite corpses

July 27, 2020
Publication

Playful research

by Anna Harris
July 20, 2020
Conference

Our virtual 4S papers 4/4

by Rachel Allison
July 13, 2020
Conference

Our virtual 4S papers 3/4

by John Nott
July 8, 2020
Publication

Workshopping, the video essay

July 7, 2020
Conference

Our virtual 4S paper 2/4

by Andrea Wojcik
July 2, 2020
Publication

Bumbling through fieldwork activities

by Rachel Allison
June 2, 2020
Inspiration

Quarantine correspondence

by MCS team
June 1, 2020
Conference

Our virtual 4S papers 1/4

by Anna Harris
May 20, 2020
Publication

Digital learning

May 18, 2020
Publication

Sticky models

April 30, 2020
Materials

Fragile models

by Anna Harris
April 23, 2020
Event

Designing for atmospheres of learning

April 16, 2020
Inspiration

Pandemic ethnography

April 9, 2020
Reflections

Making do

by Anna Harris
April 2, 2020
Reflections

Digital times

by Anna Harris
March 24, 2020
Talk

A meaningful interaction

by Anna Harris
February 26, 2020
Event

Filmic humanities

by Anna Harris
February 19, 2020
Inspiration

Before UDS: where did Ghana’s doctors train?

by John Nott
February 12, 2020
Publication

How to Make an Omelette

by Andrea Wojcik
January 15, 2020
Multimedia

Workshopping videos (6/6): Dwellings

by Anna Harris
December 18, 2019
Multimedia

Workshopping videos (5/6): Visualising the workshop

by Anna Harris
December 11, 2019
Multimedia

Workshopping videos (4/6): Science lesson

by Anna Harris
December 2, 2019
Multimedia

Workshopping videos (3/6): Simulating candlelight

by Anna Harris
November 25, 2019
Multimedia

Workshopping videos (2/6): Imaginative ethnographies

by Anna Harris
November 18, 2019
Multimedia

Workshopping videos (1/6): Napkins

by Anna Harris
November 11, 2019
Inspiration

Movement Interview for Museum Motus Mori

by Andrea Wojcik
November 6, 2019
Event

Place and Affect: From Semmelweis to Soeterbeeck

by Rachel Allison
September 11, 2019

A life in speculum

by Sally Wyatt
August 12, 2019
Inspiration

Repetition in ethnographic writing

by Andrea Wojcik
August 2, 2019
Publication

Food for thought in medical training

by Anna Harris
July 31, 2019
Conference

The Body and the Built Environment

by John Nott
July 9, 2019
Event

Material thinking workshop

by Anna Harris
June 26, 2019
Event

Anthropology in medical education

by Anna Harris
June 24, 2019
Event

Making by writing

by Anna Harris
June 14, 2019
Event

Introduction to perfumery

by Rachel Allison
May 17, 2019
Inspiration

Practicing music skills

by Carla Greubel
May 16, 2019
Inspiration

Lost in translation, and in space

by John Nott
March 27, 2019
Event

Time for tinkering

by Anna Harris
February 21, 2019
Event

How smart is “smart” technology?

by Andrea Wojcik
January 11, 2019
Materials

Tools of the teaching trade

by Sally Wyatt
January 10, 2019
Materials

Christmas yarn

by Anna Harris
December 24, 2018
Multimedia

Cooking classes

by Anna Harris
November 26, 2018
Inspiration

Barefeet

by Anna Harris
October 21, 2018
Inspiration

Letterheads

by Anna Harris
September 26, 2018
Inspiration

Postcards

by Anna Harris
September 16, 2018
Materials

Wax museum

by Rachel Allison
August 6, 2018
Publication

Expressive instructions

by Anna Harris
July 31, 2018
Inspiration

Writing resources

by Rachel Allison
July 23, 2018
Event

Meaning and beauty

by Rachel Allison
July 20, 2018
Conference

Correspondence

by Anna Harris
July 16, 2018
Materials

The allure of the archives

by John Nott
June 28, 2018
Event

Methods workshop at UDS

by Andrea Wojcik
May 23, 2018
Event

Probes

by Anna Harris
May 16, 2018
Article

Tricks

by Anna Harris
April 27, 2018
Writing workshop

Beyond the elevator

by Anna Harris
April 6, 2018
Conference

Simulating touch

by Anna Harris
March 27, 2018
Conference

Dancing, moving, unsettling

by Anna Harris
March 9, 2018
Event

Skillshare Writing Workshop

by Rachel Allison
February 25, 2018
Conference

STS in/on Africa

by John Nott
February 19, 2018
Article

A month together

February 8, 2018
Event

Comparison as method

by Anna Harris
February 6, 2018
Publication

Working with bias

by Anna Harris
January 19, 2018
Inspiration

Holiday reading

by Anna Harris
January 3, 2018
Materials

Modelling movement in medical education

by Andrea Wojcik
December 13, 2017
Conference

Embroider meet surgeon

by Anna Harris
October 30, 2017
Event

Sensing with medical students

by Anna Harris
October 9, 2017
Materials

Pagers

by Anna Harris
September 13, 2017

We are hiring!

September 5, 2017
Event

TransPositions Summer School 2017

September 4, 2017
Conference

Ethnographic Experimentation #Colleex

by Rachel Allison
August 7, 2017
Event

Making an omelette

by Sally Wyatt
July 21, 2017
Materials

Tuning forks and electronics

by Sally Wyatt
May 12, 2017
Event

Drawing Instruments

by Rachel Allison
March 20, 2017
Article

Experimenting with collaborative sensory ethnography

by Andrea Wojcik
March 16, 2017
Conference

A sensory training workshop

by Anna Harris
August 29, 2016
Loading