Spiritual Beliefs as Source of Healing among Southern Sudanese in Boston
-Azande Mangeango
The Boston Healing Landscape Project seeks to examine the range of religio-therapeutic beliefs among African-descended peoples within the Boston area. The project is particularly interested in how spiritual practices among the African Diasporants intersect with bio-medicine. The project proposes to observe and engage communities of African descent in the Boston area in order to uncover how individuals use alternative and complementary methods of healing in conjunction with various religious beliefs. The information obtained will be used to assist the medical community in providing culturally competent, health care. The information will also be integrated into future health education materials. In addition, the study will assist the medical community in attaining a comprehensive understanding of the link between medicine, health, and belief systems within the Southern Sudanese community.
Sudan has been in the throes of a civil war between the North and the South since 1955 with a brief lull between 1972 and 1983. It is a multi-layered conflict with various levels of causality. The war is in some respects, religiously motivated. The north is predominantly Moslem and the South is predominantly Traditionalist (“animist”) and Christian. The Government of Sudan is an Islamic fundamentalist government that has imposed sharia, Islamic law, upon the entire country – Muslim and non-Muslim alike. The war also has an ethnic dimension. Many of the Afro-Arabs in the North do not see themselves as “African” and distinguish themselves from the Southerners. The war is in many ways a war of identities: who will determine the national identity of Sudan?1 Is it an Islamic, Middle Eastern country? Or is it, as much of the South considers itself, a “Black African” country? Whether the reason be ethnic, religious, economic, cultural or political for different individuals involved, the government of Sudan has waged a war against the citizenry of the South since the time of the country’s inception. Historically the Arab north has had hostile relations with the Southern peoples, due to a history of slave raids into the South.
The brunt of the conflict has been borne in the South (an area the size of Texas), creating nearly 5 million displaced Southerners and leaving 2 million deceased. It has impacted all aspects of life in the South where there is no electricity, a paucity of schools, medical care and very little infrastructure. The government has allowed for and often encouraged unchecked raids on villages in areas such as Bahr el-Ghazal; it has bombed schools, churches, market places and other civilian areas; it has displaced the Nuer people in Bentiu in order to exploit the oil. Ironically, the self-same oil profits enable the Government of Sudan to acquire more arms and in turn, kill more Southerners.
In 2001, the UNHCR effected one of the largest migrations of unaccompanied minors into the United States all of whom were Southern Sudanese. The majority these young men, known as “the Lost Boys” have grown up in a refugee camp in Kenya (Kakuma). The conditions in the camp were extremely harsh. There were few adequate medical facilities, very little food, and educational opportunities.2 We have chosen to work with the adult group of young men primarily because they now comprise the majority of Sudanese in Boston. Although Southern Sudanese are a recently-arrived group to the United States, already the demographics have shifted. Until 2001, the Southern Sudanese in the Boston area were primarily families. Many of these families however, having found Boston uninhabitable for working class people, have migrated to other areas such as Maine and New Hampshire. To date, at least forty Southern Sudanese originally resettled in the Boston area have left. Now, young men comprise the vast majority of Southern Sudanese living in Boston and the metro areas.
This particular group of young men, unlike the unaccompanied minors who were placed with foster families, has been treated as adult. They were given only a limited time to adapt and fit into life in the United States (in most cases 8 months). During this time, they are expected to become working, wage-earning, rent-paying, immigrants, a feat even for an American-born citizen. They are able to afford the high rents by living, at times, as many as six in a one-bedroom apartment. Many of them have carried little with them except for their cultural beliefs and practices. Given the conditions of resettlement, it would be unlikely that one would not find a significant number of transculturated health beliefs among this population.3
Our focus is Spiritual Beliefs as a Source of Healing among Southern Sudanese in Boston. There are a plethora of traditions and beliefs within the Southern Sudan. While a number of Southerners are Christian, many still practice their traditional beliefs as their sole “religion.” There are a range of Christian experiences as well. Although the predominant denominations are Catholic and Anglican, there is some Presbyterian, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist and Pentecostal presence in Southern Sudan. The Southern Sudanese have carried this religious diversity with them to their new homes in the United States and other countries of the world.
Despite the fact that the young men may have grown up in camps away from Sudan, they have not avoided acculturation and socialization altogether. The camps, being intergenerational, provided a semblance of a community in which the elders serve as living examples and transmitters of culture.4We have therefore decided to include transmission of beliefs and acculturation of traditions in the United States as key components of the study. To this end, we will also interview the previously-resettled, Southern Sudanese elder and adult population. The questionnaire we will use will determine whether or not the study participants are utilizing traditional health practices and, if so, will explore what kind and in what capacity. Even the non-use of traditional therapeutics will illustrate the extent to which displacement has affected these participants’ familiar health beliefs and remedies.
This study is pertinent given the dire situation of the Southern Sudanese refugees and immigrants, the conditions under which they left the Sudan, and the fact that scant research has taken place among this newly-arrived group. Understanding the health beliefs of this group and to what extent they draw upon traditional beliefs as a source of healing will assist the medical community to better provide more culturally-competent health care. It would also be most educative to the medical and social service communities concerned with the effects of displacement on the transmission of cultural/spirituo-therapeutic beliefs and practices in a new land. Finally, this study will identify ways in which group identity and cohesion foment healing.
1. Deng FM. War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan. Washington DC:
Brookings Institution; 1995.
2. Downing R. A Tale of Two Clinics – Primary Health Care in Refugee Settings:
Lessons from Sudan and Somalia. Social Science Medicine. 1989; 28(10): 1053-1058.
3. Kibour Y. Ethiopian Immigrants’ Racial Identity Attitudes and Depression Symptomatology
An Exploratory Study. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minorioty Psychology. 2001; 7(1): 47-58.
4. Shandy DJ. Perils and Possibilities of Nuer Refugee Migration to the United States.
Dissertation, Columbia University; 2001.