Asian Medicine Today

Objectives

Studies of the historical development of Asian medicines emphasize the contributions and appropriations, both theoretical and practical, which have taken place between medical systems at different periods. Already partly documented therefore are the influence of Chinese medicine and Ayurveda on the establishment of the learned medicine of Tibet between the 7th and 12th Centuries, and the exchanges between the Arabo-Islamic medicine (Yunāni) and Ayurveda in the Indian sub-continent in the 16th Century. Throughout these interconnected histories, various types of medical knowledge have crossed cultures and political borders and been grafted on to diverse therapies. These processes of continuous construction in Asian medicines continue nowadays, although often in new forms. The social, political and identity dynamics, as well as the changes related to practice and, to a lesser extent, epistemology, are today affecting these medicines with an intensity unequalled in the modern era.

Therapeutic globalization is therefore an ideal example. Its study not only offers an account of the ways in which these centuries-old medicines are produced socially, but also provides information on the dynamics of the societies in which they are found, on the types of relationships they maintain with other health systems and on their national and international modes of diffusion. Asian medicines today have an increasingly cosmopolitan character, as Chinese therapeutic practices are to be found in European hospitals, the British government has legally recognized “Indian” Ayurvedic medicine, and practitioners of yoga-for-health are more numerous in Western Europe than on the sub-continent where yoga originated. Even though these therapeutic systems and their associated practices are far from homogenous in their original contexts, their movement towards the Occident further reinforces their heterogeneity. These changes correspond to varied contexts and allow over time the rise of socially and, to some extent medically, different medicines. What may be thought of as the same medical system is in fact significantly transformed when it is practised in Paris, Shanghai, Berlin or Mumbai. This means that there are, in a certain way, various Chinese, Ayurvedic and Tibetan medicines, each of which demands consideration in its plurality: the place where it is practised, the patients who turn to it and the nature of the therapeutic discourse extend beyond the cultural field of origin and thus shape the medical practice itself.

While globalization facilitates the movement of therapists, of their medicinal products, and of their knowledge and practices at the international level, it can also be seen to reinforce the cultural anchorage and identity of the medicine. Although the medicines are no longer confined within their cultures and source societies, the foundations of their legitimacy remain there, all the same. Moreover, there are fashionable associations being made between medical systems and certain forms of nationalism connected to specific Asian nations or populations within them: Ayurveda with Hindu India, for example, or Tibetan medicine and the exiled Tibetans. Much as they move about and are transformed upon contact with new societies, Asian medicines also incarnate fragments of culture and represent nations and groups, both real and imaginary. The histories of Asian medicines flow within wider and even more complex historical currents in which the societies of the past rarely correspond to today’s nations, infusing the medical field with considerable social stakes and cultural significance. Identity, cultural and national dimensions co-exist with the trans-nationalism (an aspect of globalization) of these medical practices. It is precisely these tensions between nationalisms and trans-nationalism, as highlighted by specialists authors such as J. Alter, along with their respective impacts on therapeutic knowledge and practice in Asian therapies, which this workshop aims to explore.

Organizers

Workshop proposed by the French Institute of Pondicherry and organized by Réseau Asie - IMASIE (CNRS, Institut des Mondes Asiatiques).

Coordinator

Laurent Pordié (French Institute of Pondicherry / CReCSS)

Speakers

• Anne-Cécile Hoyez (University of Rouen, France)
• Evelyne Micollier (Intitute of Research for Development (IRD), France)
• Laurent Pordié (French Institute of Pondicherry / CReCSS, Aix-en-Provence, France)
• Brigitte Sébastia (French Institute of Pondicherry / Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France)
• Francis Zimmermann (Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France)

Venue

3rd Congress of the Réseau Asie - IMASIE (CNRS, Institut des Mondes Asiatiques), Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 105, Boulevard Raspail (Salle 233), Paris 6