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Healing Powers and Modernity Traditional Medicine, Shamanism, and Science in Asian Societies
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Linda H. Connor, ed., Geoffrey Samuel
ISBN: 0-89789-715-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-89789-715-0
296 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 2/28/2001
List Price: $131.95 (UK Sterling Price: £91.95)
Availability: Print on demand
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: What is the current state of traditional healing practices in contemporary Asian societies? How are their practitioners faring in the encounter with Western science and its biomedical approach? How are traditional healing practices being transformed by the politics of health within the modern nation-state and by the processes of commodification typical of modern economies? How do patients in Asian societies see the various healing options now open to them?

The authors, all of whom are anthropologists, observe the clashes and complementarities between traditional therapies and biomedicine, which, in its many manifestations, is the dominant form of medicine supported by national governments, and is emblematic of the modernity to which they aspire. Some of the medical traditions, such as the sophisticated herbal-humoral systems of Tibetan medicine and Indian Ayurveda, are becoming well known in the West, both through scholarly study and through their increasing popularity with Western patients interested in their healing potential. This book adds a new dimension to their study, being focused unlike most previous writing on practice rather than textual tradition.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
    Healing Powers in Contemporary Asia by Linda H. Connor
    Healing in the Modern State: Korea, Malaysia, and India
    The Cultural Politics of "Superstition" in the Korean Shaman World: Modernity Constructs Its Other by Laurel Kendall
    Tradition and Change in Malay Healing by Carol Laderman
    Modernity and the Midwife: Contestations Over a Subaltern Figure, South India by Kalpana Ram
    The Political Ecology of Health in India: Indigestion as Sign and Symptom of Defective Modernization by Mark Nichter
    Healing on the Margins: Malaysia, Indonesia, and China
    Engaging the Spirits of Modernity: The Temiars by Marina Roseman
    Presence, Efficacy, and Politics in Healing Among the Iban of Sarawak by Amanda Harris
    Sorcery and Science as Competing Models of Explanation in a Sasak Village by Cynthia L. Hunter
    Medicines and Modernities in Socialist China: Medical Pluralism, the State, and Naxi Identities in the Lijiang Basin by Sydney D. White
    Healing Power and Identity in Tibetan Societies
    Tibetan Medicine at the Crossroads: Radical Modernity and the Social Organization of Traditional Medicine in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China by Craig R. Janes
    Partuclarizing Modernity: Tibetan Medical Theorizing of Women's Health in Lhasa, Tibet by Vincanne Adams
    Tibetan Medicine in Contemporary India: Theory and Practice by Geoffrey Samuel
    Glossary of Tibetoan Terms
    Index
About the Author: LINDA H. CONNOR is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, The University of Newcastle, Australia./e

GEOFFREY SAMUEL is Professor of Anthropology, The University of New Castle, Australia./e
LCC Class: 615
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