Violence, religion and the use and abuse of healthworlds

Abstract

This article draws on theoretical insights into the link between health, religeon, and religious traditions in contexts that have been deeply compromised by violence and trauma. It argues for the critical importance of understanding and making visible the agency of those who struggle to maintain or gain health in contexts that are often resource deprived and conflicted in many ways. It presents the same argument for the capacity of such people to use this agency for further leverage the religious "assets" upon which they often draw for transforming the conditions that produce ill-health. The term "assets" is related to an approach to health and its social determinants that stresses, "what people already have" in local contexts, however deprived, rather than "what they don't have". It is allied with people-centered, asset-based development theory. Following this understanding, the discussion focuses on the notion of "healthworlds"; the embodiment of healthworlds; and the contribution of religeous entities to an adequate public health response to interpersonal violence.