In Healing Cultures, the editors have collected a set of articles that address the interplay between the acts, discussion, and language of healing in syncretic Afro-Caribbean cultures, and the art those cultures have produced. “Culture” here means primarily religions, which the editors regard as “powerful repositories of inner strength and cultural affirmation” (p. xvii). Seeking to show “the beneficial aspects” of Afro-Caribbean syncretism “from within the communities in question” (p. xix), they have primarily chosen authors who speak from a direct, personal perspective. Mario A. Nuñez Molina argues, in his essay on healing and espiritismo in the Puerto Rican diaspora, that the experiential approach helps the researcher achieve overlooked insights and in “collecting, analyzing, and understanding data in a way that is more consonant with the culture being studied” (p. 123). This is a common methodological theme for many of the book’s diverse contributors, who include psychologists, anthropologists, writers,...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
