SUPERNATURAL BELIEFS, PUBLIC-HEALTH AND PEOPLES PARTICIPATION IN BLACK-AFRICA

Based on the experience of community participation for tsetse control in the Congo, the author attempts to enlarge the reflexion on general health problems in Black Africa. He desires to draw the attention of the readers unfamiliar with anthropology, 1) to the current existence and social importance in the African communities of a particular approach, grounded on belief in the supernatural, radically different from Western thinking, 2) the intrinsic ambiguousness and richness of these ways ot thinking, 3) to its great influence in community participation in sanitation programs. The ethical problems involved in the intervention of mediators using traditional or confessional ways of thinking are raised and included in a psychosocial problematic.