Description
Book SynopsisThe contributors to Healing at the Periphery examine Sowa Rigpa, or Tibetan medicine, and the central part practitioners of Tibetan healing known as amchis play in Indian Himalayan communities and the exile Tibetan community.
Trade Review“These wonderfully detailed ethnographic studies look at ‘Tibetan Medicine’ from the peripheries and the grass roots of Indian Himalayan regions. A diverse and populous amchi medicine is here revealed as plural, embedded in communities and in history, and much valued by sick and healthy people alike. This volume promises to completely recast and thoroughly pluralize Tibetan studies and Asian medical history.” -- Judith Farquhar, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of Chicago
Table of ContentsIntroduction. The Indian Face of Sowa Rigpa / Stephan Kloos and Laurent Pordié 1
1. The Amchi as Villager: Status and Its Refusal in Ladakh / Fernanda Pirie 23
2. Good Medicines, Bad Hearts: The Social Role of the Amchi in a Buddhist Dard Community / Stephan Kloos 41
3. Where There is No Amchi: Tibetan Medicine and Rural-Urban Migration Among Nomadic Pastoralists in Ladakh / Calum Blaikie 65
4. The Monetarization of Tibetan Medicine: An Ethnography of Village-Based Development Activities in Lingshed / Florian Besch and Isabelle Guérin 95
5. The Amchi at the Margins: Notes on Childbirth Practices in Ladakh / Laurent Pordié and Pascale Hancart Petitet 119
6. A Case of Wind Disorder: The Interplay of Amchi Medicine and Ritual Treatments in Zangskar / Kim Gutschow 143
7. Allegiance to Whose Community? Effects of Men-Tsee-Khang Policies on the Role of Amchi in the Darjeeling Hills / Barbara Gerke 171
Afterword. When "Periphery" Becomes Central / Sienna R. Craig 197
Contributors 201
Index 205
