African local knowledge and livestock health: Diseases and treatments in South Africa
本书基于访谈研究，探讨南非后种族隔离时代牲畜所有者的地方知识、疾病认知与治疗实践，揭示其社会经济困境与国家兽医服务的不足。
This volume makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the contemporary conditions and perspectives of African livestock owners in the post-apartheid era. ‘All is not well on South Africa's veld,’ the authors declare on the very first page – a phrase that captures their broader assessments regarding the socio-economic predicaments of livestock managers, local farmers' understandings of their particular environmental and disease contexts and appropriate therapeutic responses, and the uneven capacity and reach of state institutions and veterinary science in meeting rural Africans' perceptions of how best to improve their animals' health. As Beinart and Brown stress, investigating such questions is increasingly crucial in South Africa. For the majority of African livestock owners across the country who manage small herds on communal lands and contend with challenges surrounding animal health in their everyday livelihoods, constrained access to material resources and biomedical knowledge in recent years has left them ‘largely to their own devices’ in conceptualizing disease causation and control, and evaluating treatment options (p. 5). Thus, the authors set out to map some of the diverse and complex contours of this influential ‘local knowledge’, drawing from their own extensive interview-based research in a wide array of case studies in the North West, Free State, and Eastern Cape provinces. As they explore an impressive range of themes, Beinart and Brown also eschew what they view as simplifying and often ‘celebratory’ depictions of ‘local knowledge’ in the post-apartheid era (pp. 164–5), instead regularly identifying particular pragmatic limits in local people's capacities, understandings, and responses concerning livestock health.