Traditional Medicine in Ghana: Statistical Production and Professionalisation of Practitioners, Practice, and Products

Traditional medical knowledge has remained important to indigenous populations. In Ghana, the practice has proven to be resilient and creative in the wake of the quantification and standardisation emphasised by state policies through the establishment of formal regulatory institutions. These have led to a kind of medical professionalism, which hitherto was alien to traditional medical practice in Ghana. This chapter explores the production of statistics on traditional medicine practitioners, their practices, and products in Ghana, and how these quantifications participate in professionalising the practice. Drawing on the findings from qualitative interviews, relevant data, and documents provided by the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Directorate, Traditional Medicine Practice Council, Food and Drugs Authority, Centre for Plant Medicine Research and other relevant stakeholders in the industry, the chapter provides a descriptive analysis of the standardising procedures for practitioners, their practices and products. The chapter concludes that there is no way one could understand traditional medical practice in Ghana without recourse to the statistics generated through regulatory standardising procedures and the effects of these standards on practitioners, practices, and products.