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Intimate Hierarchies And Qur'anic Saliva (Tëfli): Textuality In A Senegalese Ethnomedical Encounter, Sabina Perrino

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the multimodal textuality of a videotaped ethnomedical

encounter between a Senegalese healer and his patient and considers these

findings in light of metadiscourses on healing that were collected in interviews.

The article demonstrates how a cultural figure of the healing process

is precipitated out of patterns of co-occurrence (or "textures") of linguistic,

paralinguistic, and nonlinguistic semiotic devices and suggests that this

approach is well equipped to illuminate ethnomedical practice in Senegal and

elsewhere.