Pino Schirripa, <em>La vita sociale dei farmaci. Produzione, circolazione, percezioni degli oggetti materiali della cura</em>, Lecce, Argo Editrice, 2015, pp. 208
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2260
Recensione di Pino Schirripa, La vita sociale dei farmaci. Produzione, circolazione, percezioni degli oggetti materiali della cura, Lecce, Argo Editrice, 2015, pp. 208.
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Margret Jaeger
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Pino Schirripa, <em>La vita sociale dei farmaci. Produzione, circolazione, percezioni degli oggetti materiali della cura</em>, Lecce, Argo Editrice, 2015, pp. 208
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Margret Jaeger
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Pino Schirripa, <em>La vita sociale dei farmaci. Produzione, circolazione, percezioni degli oggetti materiali della cura</em>, Lecce, Argo Editrice, 2015, pp. 208
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                                                2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 341-343




                                                                                         RECENSIONI

Pino SCHIRRIPA ⎸La vita sociale dei farmaci. Produzione, circolazione, consumo
degli oggetti materiali della cura, Lecce, Argo, 2015, pp. 206.


   This book resumes the author’s 20 years’ experience in working about pharmaceuti-
cal products (traditional medicine and industrialized ones) in Ghana (since 1989),
Ethiopia (since 2007) and Italy (2000-2003). Within eight chapters he shows develop-
ments in the health sector, involving pharmaceutical products, in these three regions,
gives insights into their healing systems and the social relations involved in it and offers
a new concept to interpret people’s way to appropriate medicines for their needs and
purposes.
   Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the anthropological perspectives of material ob-
jects of healing, methodological considerations and an enlightening definition of such
products on page 21:
      Si può definire, in prima approssimazione, come farmaco una data sostanza, o meglio un
      insieme di sostanze, che vengono percepite – in una data comunità e in un momento stori-
      co preciso – come efficaci per contrastare, e spesso per risolvere, ciò che in quello specifi-
      co ‘contesto è considerate come ‛malattia’ (published first in Schirripa, 2009).

    This definition offers to everybody, who studies pharmaceutical products in a broad
sense, the opportunity to analyze their production, their distribution and their use in a
certain space at a certain time, including who produce them for whom with which goal.
    Since 1989 the author spent many time doing fieldwork in different spaces and
places about similar topics, but rejects to call it multi-sited ethnography as defined by
Marcus (1986), because he changed his research interests within the broad field of the
production, distribution and consumption of traditional and industrialized pharmaceut-
ical products. He also never had the intention to compare his results to each other,
which is also a goal of such ethnographies. Since 2007 the author does, involving Mas-
ter’s and PhD students from La Sapienza University Rome, research in the province of
Tigray and its capital Mekelle to look at the formation of the knowledge about tradi-
tional medicines (made of plants, animals, metals) and the social relations that are in-
volved with its dissemination.


This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Margret Jäger
2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 341-343.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2260
342                                               PINO SCHIRRIPA ⎸LA VITA SOCIALE DEI FARMACI


    Chapter 2 presents the global and local issues which are raised when healing, heal-
ing objects, healers, health systems and interests of the market come together.
    Chapter 3 explains at the beginning shortly the history of Ethiopia, which is unique
on the African continent as it was a colony of Italy for only for five years (1936 to
1941) and a free nation before and afterwards. Developments of state structures and
society need to be seen under this light, which is different of other African states who
remained colonies for a long time. It further more resumes the medical system in the
state of Tigray, the characteristics of the field of traditional medicine and religious
healing with different stakeholders and the division of “traditional/religious/modern”
and “public/private/charitable”.
    Chapter 4 presents the different ways pharmaceuticals and their actors interact in
Tigray. The field of therapies needs to be seen within a historical perspective of the de-
velopment of Ethiopia itself and the social relations and forms of actors. Schirripa
presents three different types of healers/pharmaceutical sellers in the way that they are
assigned to which type of products they sell (materia prima – plants, animals, minerals,
self-produced pharmaceuticals for individuals and mass produced pharmaceuticals for
an unknown public). This order focuses on the materiality of the healing products and
interlinks them then with social relations of the therapy process. Schirripa presents the
different groups of healers with some concrete examples, showing the specificity of
each. The author draws furthermore the reader’s attention to the issue of the origin of
production of pharmaceuticals, their prices and how these influence the market that is
if people are able to afford the medication and where it is sold.
    Chapter 5 presents the case of Melat as an example of how different strategies and
tactics of using pharmaceutical products for healing processes are applied depending
on the sickness (HIV and a physical/developmental handicap of her grandchildren) and
the economic conditions of a family. This article was already published in 2012 in the
Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo.
    Chapter 6 presents the pathways of pharmaceuticals in Ghana and addresses the
different actors as well as the processes of the legitimization of medicine, critical notes
about some development projects of “the white man”, the herb markets and illegal ways
of selling pharmaceuticals and the semantical translation and the indigenization of
practices. Schirripa shows findings from the period of multiple stays and researches
1992 to 2006 and since 2014, when he was appointed director of the Italian Ethnolo-
gical Mission in Ghana and continued his work there. Italy also financed and still fin-
ances the so-called development projects in the country and the author accompanied
interesting changes in their policies. Ghana is an interesting example for the application
of WHO’s goals of primary health care and the involvement and development of tradi-
tional medicines and healers.
    Chapter 7 sums the fieldwork experience within an Italian laboratory of a pharma-
ceutical company (2000 – 2002) to get known the process of the development of new
products and its marketing. After general considerations about doing fieldwork in this


2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 341-343
PINO SCHIRRIPA ⎸LA VITA SOCIALE DEI FARMACI                                                343


field the company is presented and the case of one product is used to show how an in-
dustrialized process develops a new pharmaceutical product.
    To sum up, Schirripa shows the complexity of the “object pharmaceutical” in differ-
ent contexts in order to make visible not only how these are produced and distributed,
but also which significance these products have in three different spaces, influenced by
local politics, financial resources, social relations, beliefs etc. in neoliberalist times. In-
equality issues of access to healing (products, techniques, specialists) are addressed as
well as they continue to be an important aspect which influences people’s chances to
get help in cases of ill health. The current global challenges involving pharmaceutical
products are, from the author’s perspective and the reviewer agrees the problem of
competition at the market of therapies, the conquest of new spaces and not only the
creation of new effective formulas for specific pathologies. All in all, the chapters about
Ethiopia are longer and more detailed than the ones about Ghana and Italy, which is a
pity. The author refers often to already published texts (articles and monographs) and
generates curiosity, but also leaves it to the reader to look up these publications to get
known more about the issues.
    To finalize, the reviewer enjoyed the reading a lot and its content may serve well to
educate health professionals about the importance of not only the pharmaceutical prod-
uct as object in a process of treatment, but also the negotiation process between thera-
pist and patient.




                                                                           Margret JÄGER
                                       Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
                                                              margretjaeger@yahoo.com




                                              2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 341-343
