Medicine and Memory in Tibet bookcover

Medicine and Memory in Tibet

Amchi Physicians in an Age of Reform
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Description

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

PublisherUniversity of Washington Press
Publish DateApril 03, 2018
Pages304
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9780295742991
Dimensions9.0 X 6.0 X 0.7 inches | 1.0 pounds

About the Author

Theresia Hofer is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Community Medicine at the University of Oslo. She received her PhD in medical history and medical anthropology from University College London in 2011, and is the author of The Inheritance of Change: Transmission and Practice in Tibetan Medicine in Ngamring (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, University of Vienna, 2012) and the editor of Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine (Rubin Museum of Art and University of Washington Press, 2014).

Reviews

"Medicine and Memory in Tibet is a captivating ethnographic and historical exploration."

-- "New Books Asia"

"Through rich narratives, detailed descriptions, and critical analysis, Hofer brings to light the struggles and hardships of medical practitioners on the socio-political margins of Tibet. . . . This study is a unique and well-crafted ethnography written in beautiful prose that will be of great interest to scholars and students of Tibetan medicine and minorities in China, social anthropologists, and historians alike."

--Benedikte V. Lindskog "Reading Religion"

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