Local Health Traditions: Plurality and Marginality in South Asia
Arima Mishra (Ed.)
Price
1765
ISBN
9789352876617
Language
English
Pages
344
Format
Hardback
Dimensions
140 x 216 mm
Year of Publishing
2019
Territorial Rights
World
Imprint
Orient BlackSwan

The study of medical pluralism, characterised by the authoritative presence of the State in defining ‘legitimate’ inclusion and exclusion, has long been studied in medical anthropology. However, recent scholarship has begun to question this statist frame.

Local Health Traditions extends this discussion by focusing on the ‘marginal’ categories of medicine and healing that range from home remedies and herbal medicine to dais, bone-setters and spiritual healers. These different forms of medicine have recently come to be known as ‘local health traditions’ in the policy texts.

Academic scholarship on medical pluralism tends to focus more on ‘systems of medicine’, leaving out local health traditions that fall off the radar of ‘systems, science and state’. Turning the lens upside down, this book places local health traditions at the centre-stage of discussion to extend the debates on medical pluralism.

The contributors critically engage with

  • issues of legitimacy and recognition,
  • documentation of traditional medical knowledge, and
  • gender in healing.

The book also studies the recent developments in policy literature: while the State has begun to address the need to revitalise local health traditions, market trends for natural, traditional remedies and products are now imposing another set of demands on these traditional practices.

Arima Mishra is Professor, Azim Premji University, Bangalore.

List of Abbreviations
List of Tables, Images and Appendices
Acknowledgements

Introduction
Arima Mishra

PART I          LEGITIMACY AND RECOGNITION

Chapter 1 - Authenticity, Alliances and Results: Notions of Legitimacy held by Traditional Healers in South India
Devaki Nambiar, Arima Mishra, Harilal Madhavan, Sarika Kadam, Shrish N. R., Steffy Dhayalan and Pooja Venkatesh

Chapter 2 - Accreditation, Certification and Self-regulation: An Innovative Approach for Strengthening and Reintegrating Traditional Community Health Care Providers
Unnikrishnan Payyappallimana, Hariramamurthi Govindaswamy, Sarin Sasikumar and Debjani Roy

Chapter 3 - Whom do the Rural Poor Consult for Health Care and How Much Do They Spend in India’s Pluralistic Health Care Arenas?
Mark Nichter

Chapter 4 - Medical Pluralism and the Political Economy of Obstetric Care among Bangladeshi Women in Britain
Sultana Mustafa Khanum

PART II          DOCUMENTATION AND SYSTEMATISATION OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Chapter 5 - From Siddha Corpus to Siddha Medicine: Reflection on the Reduction of Siddha Knowledge through Exploration of Manuscripts
Brigitte Sebastia

Chapter 6 - Family Repositories to ‘Knowledge Commons’: The Discourse of Documenting Local Health Traditions in Contemporary Kerala
Harilal Madhavan and Praveen Lal

Chapter 7 - Documenting Folk Ayurvedic Knowledge in Uttarakhand: Insights from Critical Medical Anthropology
Moe Nakazora

Chapter 8 - Documentation of Traditional Health Knowledge: To What End?
Arima Mishra and Devaki Nambiar

PART III          GENDER IN HEALING

Chapter 9 - Nested Marginalities: Women in Healing in South India
Arima Mishra, Maya Annie Elias, Devaki Nambiar and Rajeev B. R.

Chapter 10 - Ritual Pollution and Women’s Blood: Listening to Dais
Janet Chawla

Chapter 11 - Dais: Transforming the Traditions
Renu Khanna

Chapter 12 - May the Vital Force be With You: An Indian Homeopathic Doctor’s Approach to the Gendered Ills of Our Time
Cecilia Coale Van Hollen

 

Notes on the Contributors
Index

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