Majmawalas and sexual health promotion in Bangladesh: An ethnography of street healers in Dhaka City

Sexual health promotion is a challenging enterprise in Bangladesh and all the more challenging if systems are not willing to recognise existing community resources. Majmawalas are local street healers who treat men’s sexual health problems. Yet rather than being seen as a potential resource for responding to sexual health, Bangladeshi authorities focus their efforts largely via a biomedical lens in which the social dimensions of sexuality are given little consideration. Among the outcomes of this biomedical dominance is a lack of interest in the potential role of traditional healing systems that are a prime source of health care for many Bangladeshis. The central contention of this thesis is the importance of working with traditional community resources rather than against them. The results of this study contribute critical knowledge about the potential to harness the Majmawalas in sexual health promotion programmes in Bangladesh.