Religious therapies and the health-disease process in the religious market in Haiti

Abstract

Religious therapies and the health-disease process in the religious market in Haiti Abstract: Among the many aspects that make the vulnerability of Haitian society evident, issues involving the health/illness process are those that induce most suffering and the perception of inequality. As Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world, the paths to try to achieve a cure for the processes of illness have been constructed within religious and therapeutic plurality. The construction of the therapeutic path of individuals who realize they are ill, however, in addition to being influenced by the profound precariousness of the public health system, is permeated by religious traditions and their view of the etiology of illness and methods of healing, and a series of religious conflicts involving local popular therapies and evangelical churches. Using the theoretical tools of religious economy, rational choice and existential security, the article seeks to discuss the process of constructing therapeutic itineraries based on the articulation between knowledge, agents and practices involved in the health/disease process, raising questions such as
religious competition in the Haitian healing market. In view of the trajectories presented, structural violence is perceived as a historical legacy, perpetuated to this day, which includes religions as determinants of the risk of becoming ill and the
viability (or not) of curing oneself of diseases.