Ayurveda – Medical System or Wellness Commodity ?

Abstract

This research investigates how Ayurveda, and the images used to represent it, are reconfigured according to the dynamic interaction between South Asia and Europe. When Ayurveda came to Europe in the course of its globalization it was transformed, especially by European consumers’ demands. The resulting hybrid form consisted of gentler therapeutic practices and an emphasis on wellness and spirituality, rather than the traditional, more physically demanding therapy. This ‘Western’ form was then re-exported to India, where it has been practiced in Ayurvedic health resorts for some years now. These resorts have become places where people from different regions with different cultural backgrounds, beliefs and desires stay together. My hypothesis is that this results in a transformation of the representations of Ayurveda that Indians and foreigners bring to the resorts and that are exchanged there as well as in influencing the practices carried out in the resorts. My research project aims to find out if the Ayurvedic centers act as ‘centers of reconfiguration,’ and I will do so by investigating which practices and representations of Ayurveda exist in a resort, and if and how they are transformed by the interactions between Indian and foreign guests and the management and the medical staff at the resort. The research will focus on the analysis of visual and textual representations in printed and internet-based sources like local magazines and newspapers, brochures and websites of resorts and advertising material from travel agencies, as well as on the ethnographic study of treatments in a resort with a concentration on interviews with practitioners, guests and the management, along with observations of daily practice.

Speaker

Christoph Cyranski, PhD Candidate in anthropology at the Excellence Cluster ’Asia & Europe’, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Organisers

Department of Social Sciences, French Institute of Pondicherry

Venue

Jawaharlal Nehru Conference Hall, French Institute of Pondicherry, 11, Saint Louis Street, Pondicherry - 605 001

Time

4.30 pm