India has long occupied an important place in Tibetan medicine's history and development. However, Indian Himalayan practitioners of Tibetan medicine, or amchi, have largely remained overlooked at the Tibetan medical periphery, despite playing a central social and medical role in their communities. Power and legitimacy, religion and economic development, biomedical encounters and Indian geopolitics all intersect in the work and identities of contemporary Himalayan amchi. This volume examines the crucial moment of crisis and transformation that occurred in the early 2000s to offer insights into the beginnings of Tibetan medicine's professionalization, industrialization, and official recognition in India and elsewhere. Based on fine-grained ethnographic studies in Ladakh, Zangskar, Sikkim, and the Darjeeling Hills, Healing at the Periphery asks how the dynamics of capitalism, social change, and the encounter with biomedicine affect small communities on the fringes of modern India, and, conversely, what local transformations of Tibetan medicine tell us about contemporary society and health care in the Himalayas and the Tibetan world.
Contributors. Florian Besch, Calum Blaikie, Sienna R. Craig, Barbara Gerke, Isabelle Guerin, Kim Gutschow, Pascale Hancart Petitet, Stephan Kloos, Fernanda Pirie, Laurent Pordie
Healing at the Periphery: Ethnographies of Tibetan Medicine in India, Laurent Pordie and Stephan Kloos (Editors), Duke University Press Books, Paperback, 224 pages, $29.95
Laurent Pordie is Senior Researcher, Research Unit on Science, Medicine, Health, and Society at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Stephan Kloos is the Acting Director of the Institute for Social Anthropology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
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CONTENTS: Healing at the Periphery
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Introduction. THE INDIAN FACE OF SOWA RIGPA
Stephan Cloos and Laurent Pordie
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1
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1.
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THE AMCHI AS VILLAGER: STATUS AND ITS REFUSAL IN LADAKH
Fernanda Pirie
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23
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2.
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GOOD MEDICINES, BAD MEDICINES: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF THE AMCHI IN A BUDDHIST DARD COMMUNITY
Stephen Kloos
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41
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3.
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WHERE THERE IS NO AMCHI: TIBETAN MEDICINE AND RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION AMONG NOMADIC PASTORALISTS IN LADAKH
Calum Blaikie
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65
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4.
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THE MONITIZATION OF TIBETAN MEDICINE: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF VILLAGE-BASED DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES IN LINGSHED
Florian Vesch and Isabelle Guerin
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95
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5.
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THE AMCHI AT THE MARGINS: NOTES ON CHILDBIRTH PRACTICES IN LADAKH
Laurent Pordie and Pascale Hancart Petitet
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119
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6.
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A CASE OF WIND DISORDER: THE INTERPLAY OF AMCHI MEDICINE AND RITUAL TREATMENTS IN ZANGSAR
Kim Gutschow
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143
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7.
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ALLEGIANCE TO WHOSE COMMUNITY? EFFECTS OF MEN-TSEE-KHANG POLICIES ON THE ROLE OF AMCHI IN THE DARJEELING HILLS
Barbara Gerke
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171
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Afterword. WHEN "PERIPHERY" BECOMES CENTRAL
Sienna R. Craig
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197
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| Contributors |
201 |
| Index |
205 |
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