Precious Pills: Medicine and Social Change among Tibetan Refugees in India / Edition 1

by Audrey Prost

Overview

Through an ethnography of the social and medical worlds of a community of Tibetan refugees in India, this book addresses two main questions: first, how has the prolonged displacement of Tibetan refugees affected concepts of health in the exile community? Second, how has exile changed traditional Tibetan medical practices? It explores how social changes linked to exile have influenced concepts of health and illness in the Tibetan refugee community of Dharamsala and by looking at recent changes in the theory and practice of traditional Tibetan medicine investigates the role of traditional Tibetan medicine in sustaining public health in the exile community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845454579
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	09/01/2008
Series:	Epistemologies of Healing , #2
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Audrey Prost is a lecturer in International Health at UniversityCollege London.

Table of Contents

Table of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Note on transliteration and the Wylie system
List of abbreviations used

Introduction

PART I: INEQUALITIES IN EXILE

Chapter 1. "Because we are Tibetans": Talking about health
Chapter 2. "India is the happiest place!" Contextualising Exile
Chapter 3. "If this place doesn’t agree with you, wounds and diseases will come"
Chapter 4. From "old-timers" to "newcomers": inequalities in the Diaspora

PART II: THE ROLE OF TRADITIONAL TIBETAN MEDICINE

Chapter 5. The Mentsikhang: Construing Authority
Chapter 6. Humours on trial: the Mentsikhang’s dilemmas

Conclusion

Notes
Glossary
References
Index