Barbara Nelson, Contributor

Anderson

Claudette Anderson was, at one time, research assistant with Professor Maureen Warner-Lewis, Professor of African Caribbean Languages and Oratory at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona.

At another time, she was the principal investigator/writer - Jamaica ethno-medicine at the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank (ACIJ/JMB).

In 2004, she was the language/ cultural consultant on Jamaican proverbs for Joan Andrea Hutchinson's Hamper of Jamaican Proverbs. She provided advice, sources, examples and interpretations of Jamaican proverbs, language and culture. Now she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University, a leading national biomedical, education and research institute located in Atlanta, Georgia.

Claudette gained the BA (First Class Honours) at the UWI (Mona) in 1998 and MA in interdisciplinary studies - Caribbean ethno-medicine and culture at Emory University in 2006.

She is now doing interdisciplinary studies in cultural linguistics with a concentration on ethno-medicine and narrative. Her general research area is the Caribbean with specific research on Jamaica. Her dissertation title was 'Sweeping out the House, Language, Ritual and Cognition in Jamaica's Ethno-Medicine'.

Ethno-medicine

What exactly is ethno-medicine? It is described as a sub-field of medical anthropology and deals with the study of traditional medicine. Thus, Claudette is looking at areas such as the healing practices of Revivalism. She maintains that those who carry the culture of a people are, in fact, the healers and this exists in every culture.

She seeks to find out what Jamaican healing narratives and rituals can tell us about the conceptualisation of sickness and healing in Jamaican culture and, also, what thought patterns underlie dominant healing rituals and how they relate to those embedded in corresponding healing narratives. To answer these questions, she explores narratives, therapeutic discourse and rituals in Revival balm therapy.

Her interest in the African traditions and religions began when she was a child.

"My grandfather was a very religious man," she said. "And his sister started the Revival Church in the community where we lived. It was a very spiritual community."

After she completed her studies in English and philosophy at the University of the West Indies at Mona, she became a writer and primary researcher for the ACIJ's ethno-medicine project.

This assignment involved writing and research, the production of a manuscript and compiling a database on Jamaican folk remedies. Claudette conducted and analysed interviews and engaged in participant observation of healing therapies. The resulting database on Jamaican folk remedies includes pharmacopoeia for nervous conditions, respiratory ailments, hypertension, tonic and purification therapies as well as geographical differentiation in the use of herbs.

Publications from this work include three articles that focus on blood therapy, herbalism and 'baat' (bath) therapy and general features of Jamaican ethno medicine.

Research Assistant

In the fall of 2002 she was a graduate research assistant to Professor Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University. Forthcoming publications which incorporate Claudette's research include Professor Wallace Sanders' 'Motherlove Supreme: Maternal Obsessions and the Black Mammy Figure in America' and 'Mammy: Race Gender and Southern Memory'.

Claudette is passionate in her beliefs and appreciation of our African heritage, traditions and culture. "Our people are wonderful and ingenious. The ideal African traditions and religions are very practical. All African religions understand the energies - we live in a universe of energies - and we need to celebrate this. Religion is part and parcel of being human. We live in a spiritual world and we ignore this to our own peril!" she said.

She thinks of herself as "doing something positive" for African related religions, which are all about empowering people.

In Revivalism, we use particular things according to who we are, she explained and added that there are wonderful stories connected to the religion and, in particular, the rituals, including the bath. She refers to the importance of 'baths' in several cultures and the effects of bathing on the human psyche.

The Africans pay homage to their ancestors. Their religion is very practical and Claudette explains that their message is one of love - "As long as it is not a message of love, it cannot work!" she said.

She has presented several conference papers including: 'Of Spirit Messengers, Spirit Sickness and Spirit Remedy: Healing as Spiritual Science in Jamaican Revivalism' at the University of South Florida, Tampa in October 2006.

Intertwined with these activities is her considerable teaching experience that began with the Peace Corps in Jamaica as an instructor in Jamaican culture, language and music, continued at the Undergrad School/Pre-University School at UWI (Mona) and has further developed at Emory where, she was first, a teaching assistant in 2004 then moved on to become a course instructor in interdisciplinary studies in society and culture - politics of identity, in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts (Fall 2004, 2005 and Summer 2006) and in the Fall of 2006 taught expository writing - medicine and culture, in the English Department.