Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:57:31.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Nationality Medicines in China: Institutional Rationality and Healing Charisma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2015

Lili Lai
Affiliation:
Institute of Medical Humanities, Peking University
Judith Farquhar*
Affiliation:
Anthropology, University of Chicago

Abstract

This article describes emergent Chinese regimes of knowledge about “minority nationality medicines.” We adopt Weberian terms of rational and charismatic authority to better understand ethnic healing as it is developing among minorities in southwestern China. In the course of uneven development among diverse ethnic groups over recent decades, modern information regimes and institutional models have started to transform the many forms of healing and heritage that can be found “on the ground” in minority areas. We delineate a shifting border between official (or rational) and wild (or charismatic) forms of medicine, and argue that every healing situation results from a dynamic and sometimes destructive relation between these forms of authority. We draw from research conducted among seven minority nationalities scattered in five provinces in China's south and southwest. After an overview of relevant scholarly work that circulates nationally, we discuss views and practices of three healers belonging to Zhuang, Tujia, and Yao groups, respectively. Ultimately we suggest that all healing, including that taking place in biomedical clinics, relies on some contact with “the wild,” and forges a relationship between rationality and charisma.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Benedict. 2006 [1991]. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1968 [1936]. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Arendt, Hannah, ed., Illuminations: Walter Benjamin, Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books, 217–52.Google Scholar
Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bowker, Geoffrey. 2005. Memory Practices in the Sciences. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bowker, Geoffrey and Star, Susan Leigh. 1999. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Brandt, Allan. 1987. No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States since 1880. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cai, Chunxi, ed. 1992. Zhongguo Yixue Baike Quanshu: Chao Yixue 中国医学百科全书: 朝医学 (Survey of Chinese medicine specialties: Korean nationality medicine). Shanghai: Shanghai Keji Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Cai, Jingfeng. 1995. Zhongguo Zangyixue 中国藏医学 (Chinese Tibetan medicine). Beijing: Science Press.Google Scholar
Cheba, Mig dmar. 2012. Slob tshan gyi slob khrid rtsa ’dzin 21世纪藏药本科教育规划教材课程教学大纲 (Curriculum outline and overall plan for twenty-first century Tibetan medicine college education). Lhasa: Tibet Renmin Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Cui, Jian and Li, Tang, eds. 2007. Zhongguo Shaoshu Minzu Chuantong Yixue Gailun 中国少数民族传统医学概论 (Outline of China's Minority Nationalities traditional medicine). Beijing: Central Nationalities University.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. 1968. Introduction. In Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ixlvi.Google Scholar
Farquhar, Judith. 1994. Knowing Practice: The Clinical Encounter of Chinese Medicine. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Farquhar, Judith. 2002. Appetites: Food and Sex in Postsocialist China. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Feuchtwang, Stephan and Wang, Mingming. 2001. Grassroots Charisma: Four Local Leaders in China. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of SexualityVolume I: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Ghopur, Halmurar, ed. 2003. Weiwueryi qizhi, tiyelun ji qi xiandai yanjiu 维吾尔医气质, 体液论及其现代研究 (Theory of Mizaj and Hilit in Uighur medicine and modern research). Urumqi: Xinjiang Kexue Jishu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Guizhou Minorities Committee, ed. 1992. Miaozu Yiyaoxue 苗族医药学 (Miao nationality medicine). Guiyang: Guizhou Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Hsu, Elisabeth. 1999. The Transmission of Chinese Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jigemude, Ba and Duyi, Cao. 1997. Menggu Yixue Jianshi 蒙古医学简史 (A short history of Mongol medicine). Hohhot: Nei Menggu Jiaoyu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Jin, Yu, ed. 2006. Mengyiyaoxue Zhushi Dacidian 蒙医药学注释大辞典 (Annotated encyclopedia of Mongol medicine). Chifeng: Nei Menggu Kexue Jishu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Langwick, Stacy. 2011. Bodies, Politics, and African Healing: The Matter of Maladies in Tanzania. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.Google Scholar
Li, Chaobin and Xiangzu, Guan, eds. 1996. Daizu Yiyaoxue 傣族医药学 (Dai nationality medicine). Kunming: Yunnan Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Li, Tong and Xunyun, Qin. 2001. Zhongguo Yao Yixue 中国瑶医学 (Chinese Yao medicine). Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Litzinger, Ralph. 2000. Other Chinas: The Yao and the Politics of National Belonging. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Yanchi. 1988. The Essential Book of Traditional Chinese Medicine. 2 vols. Tingyu, Fang et al. , trans. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Mao, Zedong. 1965 [1937]. On Practice. In Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 295309.Google Scholar
Montgomery, Kathryn. 2006. How Doctors Think: Clinical Judgment and the Practice of Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mullaney, Thomas. 2011. Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nappi, Carla. 2009. The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nurmemet, Ablikim and Eli, Mutellip, eds. 2004. Uyghur tebabiti asasiy neziriyiliri Ilmi (Theoretical foundations of Uighur medicine). Urumqi: Xinjiang Renmin Weisheng Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Palmer, David. 2007. Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Porkert, Manfred. 1974. The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Systems of Correspondence. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Scheid, Volker. 2002. Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Schein, Louisa. 2000. Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China's Cultural Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Sde srid sangs rgyas rgya mtsho. 1982. Gso rig sman gyi khog ’bugs (History of Tibetan medicine). Lanzhou: Gansu Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Sivin, Nathan. 1987. Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Sunder Rajan, Kaushik. 2006. Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Kim. 2005. Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945–1963: A Medicine of Revolution. New York: Routledge Curzon.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1968. On Charisma and Institution Building. Eisenstadt, S. N., ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Weller, Robert P. 2008. Asia and the Global Economies of Charisma. In Kitiarsa, Pattana, ed., Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods. New York: Routledge, 1518.Google Scholar
Xu, Jiqun and Mianzhi, Wang. 1995. Fangjixue 方剂学 (Formulary). Beijing: Renmin Weisheng Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Yang, Nianqun. 2006. Zaizao Bingren: Zhongxiyi Chongtuxiade Kongjian Zhengzhi, 1932–1985 再造病人 : 中西医冲突下的空间政治 1832–1985 (Remaking patients: the politics of space in conflicts between Chinese and Western medicine, 1832–1985). Beijing: Renmin Daxue Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhu, Guoben. 2006. Zhongguo Minzu Yiyao Gailun 中国民族医药概论 (Essays on China's nationality medicines). Beijing: Zhongguo Yiyao Keji Chubanshe.Google Scholar