Medicine and Memory in Tibet: Amchi Physicians in an Age of Reform

by Theresia Hofer

Overview

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295743004

Only fifty years ago, Tibetan medicine, now seen in China as a vibrant aspect of Tibetan culture, was considered a feudal vestige to be eliminated through government-led social transformation. Medicine and Memory in Tibet examines medical revivalism on the geographic and sociopolitical margins both of China and of Tibet’s medical establishment in Lhasa, exploring the work of medical practitioners, or amchi, and of Medical Houses in the west-central region of Tsang.

Due to difficult research access and the power of state institutions in the writing of history, the perspectives of more marginal amchi have been absent from most accounts of Tibetan medicine. Theresia Hofer breaks new ground both theoretically and ethnographically, in ways that would be impossible in today’s more restrictive political climate that severely limits access for researchers. She illuminates how medical practitioners safeguarded their professional heritage through great adversity and personal hardship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295743004
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Series:	Studies on Ethnic Groups in China
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	528,070
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Theresia Hofer is lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Bristol. She is the author of The Inheritance of Change: Transmission and Practice of Tibetan Medicine in Ngamring and editor of Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine.

What People are Saying About This

Vincanne Adams

This beautiful ethnography offers the missing story of the modern history of Tibetan Medicine. Not only an excellent introduction to the medical system, Medicine and Memory in Tibet offers novel insights about the work of rural lineage based practitioners, the role of memory in cultural preservation, and the gendered experiences of health under tumultuous demands of modernization. In sum, Theresia Hofer has offered a gem.

Sienna R. Craig

Medicine and Memory in Tibet opens up for readers a sense of what it has meant to be a Tibetan medical practitioner during the massive political, economic, and sociocultural transitions of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Hofer reveals the complexities of knowledge transmission, the history of medical practice, and the power of local histories.

Denise M. Glover

Hofer examines aspects of the history of Tibetan medicine that have not been well studied, including the structure and significance of Tibetan Medical Houses. Her investigation and analysis broaden our understanding of the multifaceted nature of Tibetan medicine.