Comparative Medical Ethnobotany of the Senegalese Community Living in Turin (Northwestern Italy) and in Adeane (Southern Senegal)

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Rachele Ellena, Univ Gastron Sci; Cassandra Quave, Emory University; Andrea Pieroni, Univ Gastron Sci
• Language: English
• Date: 2012-01-01
• Publisher: Hindawi Publishing Corporation
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: Copyright © 2012 Rachele Ellena et al.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/604363
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• ISSN: 1741-427X
• Volume: 2012
• Start Page: 1
• End Page: 30
• Keywords: Life Sciences & Biomedicine; NORTHERN ENGLAND; CLASSIFICATION; INTEGRATIVE & COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE; Integrative & Complementary Medicine; KNOWLEDGE; PHARMACOPEIA; MIGRATION; MIGRANTS; Science & Technology; MEDICINAL-PLANTS; GERMANY; BRADFORD; HEALERS
• Research Categories: Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies; Health Sciences, Public Health

Abstract

A medico-ethnobotanical survey was conducted among the Senegalese migrant communities of Turin (Piedmont, NW Italy) and their peers living in Adeane (Casamance, Southern Senegal), both among healers and laypeople. Through 27 in-depth interviews, 71 medicinal plant taxa were recorded and identified in Adeane and 41 in Turin, for a total of 315 different folk remedies recorded in Senegal and 62 in Turin. The large majority of the medicinal plants recorded among Senegalese migrants in Turin were also used in their country of origin. These findings demonstrate the resilience of home remedies among migrants and consequently the role they should have in shaping public health policies devoted to migrant groups in Western Countries, which seek to seriously take into account culturally sensitive approaches, that is, emic health-seeking strategies.