Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine

The Creation of an Industry and the Moral Economy of Tibetanness

Martin Saxer (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

304 Seiten

2013
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
978-0-85745-772-1 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

Within a mere decade, the creation of a Tibetan medicine industry in the People's Republic of China has resulted in hospital pharmacies throughout the Tibetan areas of China being converted into pharmaceutical companies. Confronted with the logic of capital and profit, these companies now produce commodities for a nation-wide market.

Within a mere decade, hospital pharmacies throughout the Tibetan areas of the People’s Republic of China have been converted into pharmaceutical companies. Confronted with the logic of capital and profit, these companies now produce commodities for a nationwide market. While these developments are depicted as a big success in China, they have also been met with harsh criticism in Tibet. At stake is a fundamental (re-)manufacturing of Tibetan medicine as a system of knowledge and practice. Being important both to the agenda of the Party State’s policies on Tibet and to Tibetan self-understanding, the Tibetan medicine industry has become an arena in which different visions of Tibet’s future clash.

Martin Saxer received a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford and is currently a Marie Curie Fellow at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Since 2003, he has worked on the history and contemporary practice of Tibetan medicine in Russia (Buryatia) and Tibet. He is the director of the documentary film ‘Journeys with Tibetan Medicine’ and runs the visual ethnography blog theotherimage.com.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Notes on Transliteration and Transcription

Acronyms

Map of Tibet

Cast of Main Characters

Chapter 1. Introduction

Perspectives on Tibetan medicine

Aku Jinpa

Official Views

The Topic of Inquiry

Industrial Modernities

Tibetanness and the Moral Space of Tradition

The Industry as Assemblage

Language and Terminology

Chapter 2. The Creation of an Industry

Sowa Rigpa and TCM – Different Trajectories

Interference and Non-Interference

The Making of TCM

Tentative Integration of Sowa Rigpa

Textbooks, Standardised Practice and Pharmacy

From Pharmacy to Factory

Reform and Revival

Socialist Market Economy

Founding Shongpalhachu

Tibetan Drug Standards and Chinese Pharmacopoeia

The Introduction of Good Manufacturing Practice

Ownership and Investment

Relations Between GMP Factories and Hospitals

The SFDA and National Drug Registration

The Size of the Industry

Forces at Work

Chapter 3. Manufacturing Good Practice

GMP in China

The Steps of Production

Sourcing and Storage of Raw Materials

Simple Pre-Processing: Washing, Trimming, Sorting

Complex Pre-Processing: Tsothal

Grinding, Mixing, and Making Pills

Sterilisation

Drying

Rationales, Practicalities

Validation

Self-Inspection

Chapter 4. Raw Materials, Refined

Domestic Sourcing Strategies

Long-term Relations to Village Collectors

Cultivation

Commercial Traders

Transnational Trade and Border Regimes

Import licences

Trader Tactics

Taxonomy and Legibility

Business Cultures

CITES and Nepalese Authorities

Baru

Gyatig

Back to Tibet

Tactics and Strategies

Chapter 5. Knowledge, Property

Owners and Pirates

The Problem of Patents

Precious Pills, Precious Properties

Filtering Knowledge

‘Old’ and ‘New’ Knowledge

Randomised Controlled Trials

The Knowledge Commodity

Decoupling Forms of Knowledge

Property, Knowledge

Chapter 6. The Aesthetic Enterprise

Disenchantment, Enchantment

Mendrup

Rituals of GMP

Packaging Remedies

Design

Materiality

Advertisement

Three Campaigns

Visual Themes

The Buddhist Company

Yuthog

Spiritual Spa

Arura’s Museum

Enchanting Whom?

Chapter 7. The Moral Economy of Tibetanness

The Tibetanness Economy

Preservation and Development

Civilisation, Culture

Theme Parks: Manufacturing Minzu

Exhibiting Sowa Rigpa and a Farewell to GMP

Morality and Spectacles of Authenticity

Real and Fake

Profit and the Ethics of Being a Doctor

The Problem of Trust

Balancing Profit with Altruism

Morality at Large

Building a Harmonious Society, Resisting Culture

The Moral Economy at Large

Chapter 8. Conclusions

Fallacies

One – Industry and Modernism

Two – Globalisation and Sinicisation

Three – Knowledge

Assemblage, Revisited

Contemporary by Assemblage

Territorial by Assemblage

Bibliography

Glossary

Erscheint lt. Verlag	16.5.2013
Reihe/Serie	Epistemologies of Healing
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	576 g
Themenwelt	Medizin / Pharmazie ► Pharmazie
	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Humanbiologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
	Technik
ISBN-10	0-85745-772-1 / 0857457721
ISBN-13	978-0-85745-772-1 / 9780857457721
Zustand	Neuware