Frances Garrett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195380040
- eISBN:
- 9780199869077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380040.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society, World Religions
This chapter examines different models of fetal growth in premodern religious and medical Tibetan embryological narratives, which describe causal forces such as karma, the natural elements, the ...
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This chapter examines different models of fetal growth in premodern religious and medical Tibetan embryological narratives, which describe causal forces such as karma, the natural elements, the energetic winds, and the wisdom of a Buddha. Embryology is presented as a means for Tibetan thinkers to define acceptable paradigms for change and growth and a theoretical model for addressing other issues of vital concern to Buddhists.Less
This chapter examines different models of fetal growth in premodern religious and medical Tibetan embryological narratives, which describe causal forces such as karma, the natural elements, the energetic winds, and the wisdom of a Buddha. Embryology is presented as a means for Tibetan thinkers to define acceptable paradigms for change and growth and a theoretical model for addressing other issues of vital concern to Buddhists.
Tatiana Chudakova
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780823294312
- eISBN:
- 9780823297481
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823294312.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
The introduction to the book lays out the primary arguments of the manuscript, grounds it in theoretical debates in anthropology, and details the primary questions and methodological approaches.
The introduction to the book lays out the primary arguments of the manuscript, grounds it in theoretical debates in anthropology, and details the primary questions and methodological approaches.
Sienna R. Craig
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520273238
- eISBN:
- 9780520951587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520273238.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Chapters 1 and 2 describe one day in two ethnographic sites. They show the scope of this ethnography and introduce key characters. They exemplify the book’s central arguments: that efficacy is a ...
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Chapters 1 and 2 describe one day in two ethnographic sites. They show the scope of this ethnography and introduce key characters. They exemplify the book’s central arguments: that efficacy is a biophysical, socioeconomic, and political concept, articulated in specific social ecologies, and that modern “traditional medicine” is tied to global regimes of governance (conservation-development agendas, biomedicine, technoscience, and global pharma) and to localized materia medica and forms of practice. These chapters reveal that it is best to speak of Tibetan medicines (plural, not singular); there is too much diversity in the practices and perspectives to do otherwise. The ethnographic realities presented are distinct but also deeply interconnected. Chapter 1 tracks one day of an amchi, a practitioner of Tibetan medicine. Witnessing an amchi at home and at work shows how social ecologies shape experiences of efficacy and the healing life in a rural place. It also shows how simple dichotomies—tradition/modernity, rural/urban, local/global—are inadequate to describe the lifework of amchi and their patients. Although the protagonists travel only several miles, they move through many worlds and occupy many social and medical roles. This chapter analyzes the ways Tibetan medicine is practiced and supported within a national context that has not officially recognized this healing system. Chapter 1 emphasizes themes including identity, knowledge transmission, and interactions with conservation-development agendas.Less
Chapters 1 and 2 describe one day in two ethnographic sites. They show the scope of this ethnography and introduce key characters. They exemplify the book’s central arguments: that efficacy is a biophysical, socioeconomic, and political concept, articulated in specific social ecologies, and that modern “traditional medicine” is tied to global regimes of governance (conservation-development agendas, biomedicine, technoscience, and global pharma) and to localized materia medica and forms of practice. These chapters reveal that it is best to speak of Tibetan medicines (plural, not singular); there is too much diversity in the practices and perspectives to do otherwise. The ethnographic realities presented are distinct but also deeply interconnected. Chapter 1 tracks one day of an amchi, a practitioner of Tibetan medicine. Witnessing an amchi at home and at work shows how social ecologies shape experiences of efficacy and the healing life in a rural place. It also shows how simple dichotomies—tradition/modernity, rural/urban, local/global—are inadequate to describe the lifework of amchi and their patients. Although the protagonists travel only several miles, they move through many worlds and occupy many social and medical roles. This chapter analyzes the ways Tibetan medicine is practiced and supported within a national context that has not officially recognized this healing system. Chapter 1 emphasizes themes including identity, knowledge transmission, and interactions with conservation-development agendas.
Sienna R. Craig
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520273238
- eISBN:
- 9780520951587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520273238.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Chapter 2 presents a very different world of Tibetan medicine, operating in an urban Chinese context, within distinct governance structures and possibilities for efficacious practice. This chapter ...
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Chapter 2 presents a very different world of Tibetan medicine, operating in an urban Chinese context, within distinct governance structures and possibilities for efficacious practice. This chapter takes place at the Arura Group, a major Tibetan medical institution in Qinghai Province, China. Located in central Xining, Qinghai’s capital, Arura’s hospital serves a large and diverse patient base. In addition to clinical practice, Arura also runs a research institution, a Tibetan pharmaceutical factory, and a major cultural museum; Arura also supports the Tibetan Medical College within Qinghai’s medical school. In contrast with the single individuals fulfilling multiple social roles described in chapter 1, in chapter 2 one moves between departments within Arura, revealing distinct domains of expertise and professional jurisdiction. One witnesses translations across medical systems—Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, biomedicine—as well as a certain level of standardization of practice and greater economic investments in Tibetan medicine here than in a rural community in the Nepal Himalaya. Chapter 2 illustrates multiple levels of engagement between Tibetan medicine, the biomedical sciences, and commercial pharmaceutical production.Less
Chapter 2 presents a very different world of Tibetan medicine, operating in an urban Chinese context, within distinct governance structures and possibilities for efficacious practice. This chapter takes place at the Arura Group, a major Tibetan medical institution in Qinghai Province, China. Located in central Xining, Qinghai’s capital, Arura’s hospital serves a large and diverse patient base. In addition to clinical practice, Arura also runs a research institution, a Tibetan pharmaceutical factory, and a major cultural museum; Arura also supports the Tibetan Medical College within Qinghai’s medical school. In contrast with the single individuals fulfilling multiple social roles described in chapter 1, in chapter 2 one moves between departments within Arura, revealing distinct domains of expertise and professional jurisdiction. One witnesses translations across medical systems—Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, biomedicine—as well as a certain level of standardization of practice and greater economic investments in Tibetan medicine here than in a rural community in the Nepal Himalaya. Chapter 2 illustrates multiple levels of engagement between Tibetan medicine, the biomedical sciences, and commercial pharmaceutical production.
Sienna R. Craig
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520273238
- eISBN:
- 9780520951587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520273238.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Chapter 3 uses the concepts of lineage and legitimacy to describe how forms of cultural and economic capital are produced through learning Tibetan medicine and through state support and recognition ...
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Chapter 3 uses the concepts of lineage and legitimacy to describe how forms of cultural and economic capital are produced through learning Tibetan medicine and through state support and recognition of this practice. Standardized regulations of all sorts—from moral precepts about the behavior of healer-physicians to state-approved curricula to medical licenses—emerge from particular social ecologies, rooted in particular political histories and environments. This chapter and chapter 5 explore how “Traditional Medicine” (TM) and “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (CAM), as globalized frames of reference, shape Tibetan medicine in Nepal and China. In this chapter, the relationship between TM/CAM and more localized understandings of legitimacy are highlighted. What makes an amchi legitimate in the context of a village or within a government-supported institution of Tibetan medicine? Are the sources of legitimacy the same? How important is lineage (menpé gyü) to garnering legitimacy? What does it means to seek government recognition in Nepal, where Tibetanness is associated with cultural backwardness and political sensitivity? How does this contrast with Chinese healthcare policies that seek to capitalize on minority nationality medicines, and to subsume all non-biomedical practices under the banner of state-supported Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). How do contemporary Tibetan medical practitioners in Nepal and China navigate the personal and professional channels available to them, as means of legitimating and enabling their practice?Less
Chapter 3 uses the concepts of lineage and legitimacy to describe how forms of cultural and economic capital are produced through learning Tibetan medicine and through state support and recognition of this practice. Standardized regulations of all sorts—from moral precepts about the behavior of healer-physicians to state-approved curricula to medical licenses—emerge from particular social ecologies, rooted in particular political histories and environments. This chapter and chapter 5 explore how “Traditional Medicine” (TM) and “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (CAM), as globalized frames of reference, shape Tibetan medicine in Nepal and China. In this chapter, the relationship between TM/CAM and more localized understandings of legitimacy are highlighted. What makes an amchi legitimate in the context of a village or within a government-supported institution of Tibetan medicine? Are the sources of legitimacy the same? How important is lineage (menpé gyü) to garnering legitimacy? What does it means to seek government recognition in Nepal, where Tibetanness is associated with cultural backwardness and political sensitivity? How does this contrast with Chinese healthcare policies that seek to capitalize on minority nationality medicines, and to subsume all non-biomedical practices under the banner of state-supported Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). How do contemporary Tibetan medical practitioners in Nepal and China navigate the personal and professional channels available to them, as means of legitimating and enabling their practice?
Calum Blaikie
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199486717
- eISBN:
- 9780199092093
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199486717.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines the ways in which changing patterns of materia medica circulation have shaped Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) pharmacy, practice and social organization in Ladakh since the 1960s. ...
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This chapter examines the ways in which changing patterns of materia medica circulation have shaped Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) pharmacy, practice and social organization in Ladakh since the 1960s. It argues that rapid growth in the availability of formerly limited raw materials was key to the emergence of larger scales of drug production and to the proliferation, complexification and commodification of medicines. These phenomena, in turn, allowed for the emergence of professionalized forms of medical practice, the enfranchisement of certain groups, ideas and practices, and the marginalisation of others. By charting the shifting material, social, economic and pharmaceutical dimensions of Ladakhi Sowa Rigpa in relation to one another, the chapter questions the constitution and boundaries of ‘the medical realm’.Less
This chapter examines the ways in which changing patterns of materia medica circulation have shaped Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) pharmacy, practice and social organization in Ladakh since the 1960s. It argues that rapid growth in the availability of formerly limited raw materials was key to the emergence of larger scales of drug production and to the proliferation, complexification and commodification of medicines. These phenomena, in turn, allowed for the emergence of professionalized forms of medical practice, the enfranchisement of certain groups, ideas and practices, and the marginalisation of others. By charting the shifting material, social, economic and pharmaceutical dimensions of Ladakhi Sowa Rigpa in relation to one another, the chapter questions the constitution and boundaries of ‘the medical realm’.
Sienna R. Craig
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520273238
- eISBN:
- 9780520951587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520273238.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Chapter 7 recounts the “social life” of zhijé 11, one Tibetan formula, from its mytho-historical creation by a female adept of the dharma in the thirteenth century to its description in Tibetan ...
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Chapter 7 recounts the “social life” of zhijé 11, one Tibetan formula, from its mytho-historical creation by a female adept of the dharma in the thirteenth century to its description in Tibetan medical texts in later centuries, and, eventually, to its use in a modern clinical research project. The chapter discusses how Tibetan women have used this eleven-ingredient compound during childbirth over time, and how Tibetan obstetricians in Lhasa prescribe this medicine. I analyze what happens when this formula becomes one of two study drugs in the first hospital-based randomized clinical trial (RCT) in the TAR, China, in which the other study drug is the biochemical compound misoprostol. Both medicines have multiple indications, but they are used in this instance to test which has the greater capacity to reduce blood loss after delivery, thereby helping to prevent postpartum hemorrhage, a complication of childbirth that kills scores of women worldwide every day. Over the course of this chapter one sees how zhijé 11 comes to embody possibilities and constraints—points of innovation and compromise—that occur when biomedicine, clinical research methodologies, and Tibetan medical theory, pharmacology, practice, and ethics intersect.Less
Chapter 7 recounts the “social life” of zhijé 11, one Tibetan formula, from its mytho-historical creation by a female adept of the dharma in the thirteenth century to its description in Tibetan medical texts in later centuries, and, eventually, to its use in a modern clinical research project. The chapter discusses how Tibetan women have used this eleven-ingredient compound during childbirth over time, and how Tibetan obstetricians in Lhasa prescribe this medicine. I analyze what happens when this formula becomes one of two study drugs in the first hospital-based randomized clinical trial (RCT) in the TAR, China, in which the other study drug is the biochemical compound misoprostol. Both medicines have multiple indications, but they are used in this instance to test which has the greater capacity to reduce blood loss after delivery, thereby helping to prevent postpartum hemorrhage, a complication of childbirth that kills scores of women worldwide every day. Over the course of this chapter one sees how zhijé 11 comes to embody possibilities and constraints—points of innovation and compromise—that occur when biomedicine, clinical research methodologies, and Tibetan medical theory, pharmacology, practice, and ethics intersect.
Tatiana Chudakova
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780823294312
- eISBN:
- 9780823297481
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823294312.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
After the collapse of state socialism, Russia’s healthcare system, much like the rest of the country’s economic and social sphere, underwent massive restructuring, while the public saw the rise to ...
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After the collapse of state socialism, Russia’s healthcare system, much like the rest of the country’s economic and social sphere, underwent massive restructuring, while the public saw the rise to prominence of a variety of nonbiomedical therapies. Formulated as a possible aid to a beleaguered healthcare infrastructure, or as questionable care of last resort, “traditional medicine” in post-socialist Russia was tasked with redressing—and often blamed for—the fraught state of the body politic, while biomedicine itself became increasingly perceived as therapeutically insufficient. The popularization of ethnically and culturally marked forms of care in Russia presents a peculiar paradox in a political context often characterized by a return to robustly homogenizing state policies. In a context where displays of cultural, religious, and ethnic difference are tightly woven with anxieties about Russia’s status as a modern state, the rise of a therapeutic sphere that tended toward multiplicity, fragmentation, bricolage, and a certain ontological agnosticism in the treatment of bodies and subjects appears, at the very least, counterintuitive. Mixing Medicines is an ethnography of therapeutic life at the peripheries of the state, set in the Siberian region of Buryatia that unexpectedly finds itself at the forefront of projects of medical integration via a local tradition of “Tibetan medicine.” The book follows the therapeutic encounters between traditional healing and the different regulatory modalities that seek to incorporate it, exploring how projects of medical integration in Siberia articulate competing conceptualizations of universality, regional belonging, national inclusion, and the ethics of caring for bodies and subjects.Less
After the collapse of state socialism, Russia’s healthcare system, much like the rest of the country’s economic and social sphere, underwent massive restructuring, while the public saw the rise to prominence of a variety of nonbiomedical therapies. Formulated as a possible aid to a beleaguered healthcare infrastructure, or as questionable care of last resort, “traditional medicine” in post-socialist Russia was tasked with redressing—and often blamed for—the fraught state of the body politic, while biomedicine itself became increasingly perceived as therapeutically insufficient. The popularization of ethnically and culturally marked forms of care in Russia presents a peculiar paradox in a political context often characterized by a return to robustly homogenizing state policies. In a context where displays of cultural, religious, and ethnic difference are tightly woven with anxieties about Russia’s status as a modern state, the rise of a therapeutic sphere that tended toward multiplicity, fragmentation, bricolage, and a certain ontological agnosticism in the treatment of bodies and subjects appears, at the very least, counterintuitive. Mixing Medicines is an ethnography of therapeutic life at the peripheries of the state, set in the Siberian region of Buryatia that unexpectedly finds itself at the forefront of projects of medical integration via a local tradition of “Tibetan medicine.” The book follows the therapeutic encounters between traditional healing and the different regulatory modalities that seek to incorporate it, exploring how projects of medical integration in Siberia articulate competing conceptualizations of universality, regional belonging, national inclusion, and the ethics of caring for bodies and subjects.
