Healing Today

This workshop will further the current reflection conducted in the framework of the regional programme "Societies and Medicines in South Asia : Comparative Studies", coordinated by the French Institute of Pondicherry. It will address a central epistemological question, that is, "do we need a new methodological concept to understand healing today, and thus revise the current analytical categories in which indigenous medicines fall ?" The aim of the workshop is not, at this stage, to come up with a consensual, complete or definite answer, but rather to formulate a new range of questions.

In order to approach this matter, the communicants and participants will intend to unpack and to categorise some aspects of contemporary healing in India, such as :

• The use of ’external’ legitimating instances (such as clinical trials and more largely biomedical practices, institution and epistemology, modern ecological narratives, national health policies…), combined to traditional legitimacy ;
• Modern industrialisation, commoditization and marketing strategies of the scholarly medicines (including IT&C) ;
• Medical tourism and New Age healing (i.e. mix between ayurveda and reiky) ;
• Multiplication of healers’ activities (development, environmental conservation, etc.) ;
• Trans-nationalisation of the healers and their practices.

The organisation of the workshop hopes to greatly facilitate discussions and exchange. Presentations will therefore not exceed 15-20 minutes, so as to have more time for discussion. Communicants will present an ethnographic case study, and highlight theoretically what, in their sense, constitute new fashions in the field of medicine in India.

Programme

First Session

• Environmental Ethics as an Ayurvedic Field of Action, by Francis Zimmermann
• Injections and Pesticides ; Body and Crops. Episteme of Folk Ecology in South India, by V. Sujatha
• Discussion : The idea of Nature in medicine today
• Ayurveda goes global ? European, American and South Asian Ayurvedas, by Madhulika Banerjee
• Ayurveda in the West and its Re-import into India, by Dagmar Wujastik
• Discussion : New global playgrounds for medical practices
• Medical Error and Medical Truth : the Placebo Effect and Room for Choice, by Dominik Wujastik
• Discussion : Reflections on evidence-based medicine

Second session

• The Institutionalisation of Contemporary Ayurveda : Pedagogy and Practice, by Harish Naraindas
• Negotiating and Transposing Humoral concepts in a Biomedical World : Significance of Ayurveda Medical Colleges, by Leena Abraham
• Discussion : On the biomedicalization of scholarly medicines
• Birth Practices Today : Popular Explanation of the Rise of C. Section in India, by Pascale Hancart Petitet
• Tentative to Indigenize Psychiatry in India (1970-1985), by Brigitte Sébastia
• Discussion : Folk practices in the biomedical realm

Third session

• "Giving Relief - a Heritage" ?! An Ehnography of an Ayurvedic Family-Based Practice in Kerala, by Mihaela Paina
• Health and Healing in Sikkim, by Vibha Arora
• Discussion : Legitimating healing
• Toward a Conceptual Framework ? Therapeutic Neo-traditionalism, by Laurent Pordié
• Discussion : Does the contemporary dynamics of healing in India justify the development of a new analytical category ?

Coordinator

Dr. Laurent Pordie Head of the Social Sciences Department (IFP)

Organizers

Department of Social Sciences French Institute of Pondicherry

Venue

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

Participants

• Leena Abraham, Tata Institute in Social Sciences, Mumbai
• Vibha Arora, Delhi University
• Madhulika Banerjee, Delhi University
• Dagmar Wujastik, DHIIR, Cambridge University
• Lucie Dejouhanet, IFP / Univ. Paris 10
• Hugues Dusausoit, Univ. of Louvain
• Jessica Hackett, Univ. Paul Cézanne, Aix
• Pascale Hancart Petitet, Univ. Paul Cézanne, Aix
• Harish Naraindas, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
• Mihaela Paina, SAI, Univ. Heidelberg
• Santosh Pathil, IFP
• Laurent Pordié, IFP / Univ. Paul Cézanne, Aix
• Vellore Pragathi, Pondicherry Institute of Linguistic and Culture
• Brigitte Sébastia, IFP
• V. Sujatha, Jawaharlal Nerhu University, Delhi
• Unnikrishnan Payyappallimana, FRLHT, Bangalore
• Dominik Wujastik, The Welcome Trust for the History of Medicine, UCL, London
• Francis Zimmermann, Chief Guest - Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris

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