The commodification of materia medica in Ladakh: Institutions, entrepreneurs and exchange networks

This paper offers some preliminary reflections on the relationships between the commodification of materia medica and recent shifts in medical culture in Ladakh (North-Western Indian Himalayas). The focus is on the reconfiguration of the social networks that animate the exchange of materia medica, changes in the modalities of medicine production and the implications of these reconfigurations for medical knowledge and practices. What are the driving forces of commodification and how is it being encouraged, adapted to or resisted by practitioners occupying different geographic and social spaces? What have been the respective impacts of the modernizing efforts of the formal institutions of Tibetan medicine and the increasing production of medicines as commodities by entrepreneurs? How are emergent discourses and practices of medicinal plant conservation contributing to the commodification of medicines? In addressing these questions the paper explores the tensions and contradictions experienced by practitioners of a medical system in flux, both internally and in relation to wider institutionalisation and modernisation processes.

Speaker

Calum Blaikie, University of Kent

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

16h30

See also : Societies and Medicines in South Asia programme page.