The Efficacy of Collaboration: Tibetan Medicine Across Countries and Conversations

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 152-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sienna Craig
Keyword(s):  
International Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Qinghai Province ◽  
Traditional Medicines ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Tibet Autonomous Region ◽  
Asian Medicine ◽  
Hands On Learning ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

First delivered as a plenary lecture at the ictam viii congress in September 2013 in South Korea, this paper discusses two interdisciplinary and collaborative workshops focusing on Tibetan medicine (also known as Sowa Rigpa) in contemporary contexts. The first event, which took place in December 2011, brought together nearly 40 practitioners of Sowa Rigpa from the greater Himalaya and Tibetan regions of the People’s Republic of China (prc), along with four anthropologists, for intensive, interactive discussions on pharmacology by making medicines together. The second event, which took place in October 2012 in Xining, Qinghai Province, prc, involved practitioners, educators, and researchers from the Arura Group, one of the leading Tibetan medicine institutions in the prc, with researchers from the United States, Europe, and tar (Tibet Autonomous Region) for in-depth discussions about integrative clinical research and the place of the humanities and social sciences in the study of traditional medicines. Both events were supported, directly or indirectly, by the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine (iastam), and abided in spirit with the mission of this organisation, namely, to bring scholars and practitioners of Asian medicine together for mutual exchange. While the Kathmandu event emphasised hands-on learning and the co-production of both knowledge and things, the Xining workshop provided Tibetan medical colleagues in the prc with the opportunity to engage with broad discussions, at once methodological and epistemological, about the meaning, purpose, and aims of research on traditional medicines today.

scholarly journals In search of trust and efficacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Fjeld ◽  
Nianggajia
Keyword(s):  
Medical Anthropology ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Medical Pluralism ◽  
Qinghai Province ◽  
Patient Role ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Shared Understandings

This article describes how Tibetan medicine, traditionally an ethnomedicine indigenous to Tibetan areas, travels across cultural boundaries in a multiethnic region, presenting empirical findings from Rebgong (Ch. Tongren) in Qinghai province, People’s Republic of China. Focusing on Muslim Hui and Han Chinese citizens, we describe how these patients smoothly engage with Tibetan medicine. This, we argue, is enabled by a strong sense of trust in distinguished Tibetan doctors, or ‘lineage doctors’, and their privately produced Tibetan medicines, and by shared understandings of the patient role. Contemporary medical pluralism in Rebgong invites us to revisit classic themes in medical anthropology as it brings the study of ethnomedicine into the context of a reconfigured instrumentalized public health system and ethnic relations, in which trust is a rare and treasured quality.

Tibetan Medicine and Its Buddhist Contexts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Autonomous Region ◽  
South Siberia ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

Tibetan medicine, also known as Sowa Rigpa (gso ba rig pa, the art, or knowledge of healing), has had a long and illustrious history, which has been intertwined with Buddhism in various aspects. It has been taught and practiced along with Tibetan Buddhism in areas that encompass the TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region, since the mid-20th century part of China), areas of mainland China (Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan), Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Buryatia (south Siberia, Russia). It is also practiced in India, particularly among the Tibetan exiled community, and in various parts of Europe and the United States.

scholarly journals Positioning Sowa Rigpa in India

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Calum Blaikie
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Medical System ◽  
The State ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Traditional Medicines ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Indian State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Discourse Coalitions ◽  
Sowa Rigpa

The years leading up to the recognition of Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) by the Government of India in 2010 saw unprecedented interaction between various branches of the tradition and the state apparatus. These interactions grew particularly intense during March 2008, when two conferences focusing on related issues took place. The first referred to ‘Tibetan medicine’ and was organised by Tibetan exile institutions, while the second spoke of ‘Sowa Rigpa’ and was hosted by a coalition of Himalayan Indian associations. Through detailed ethnography of these events, this article examines the way in which a medical system was discursively constructed and positioned on the brink of state enfranchisement. It shows how ‘discourse coalitions’ and antagonisms formed during these events, and enquires as to the implications of these for the balance of power in Sowa Rigpa and for its positioning in relation to the Indian state, technoscience, and the growing market for traditional medicines.

scholarly journals Global Pandemic, Translocal Medicine

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-88
Author(s):  
Sienna R. Craig ◽  
Nawang T. Gurung ◽  
Ross Perlin ◽  
Maya Daurio ◽  
Daniel Kaufman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Qinghai Province ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Abstract This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog’s diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.

scholarly journals Acupuncture, the Black Panther Party, and People’s Medicine

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-275
Author(s):  
Daniel Burton-Rose ◽  
Yi-Li Wu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Panther Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Instructional Materials ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Asian Medicine ◽  
Black Panther

Abstract Tolbert Small (b. 1943) is a physician and civil rights activist best known for his advocacy for research on sickle cell anemia. In the summer of 2020 two of Asian Medicine’s editors, Daniel Burton-Rose and Yi-Li Wu, interviewed Small about his clinical career of more than fifty years. The interview focuses on Small’s experience with acupuncture, the practice of Chinese medicine in the United States, and his commitment to social justice. Small was introduced to acupuncture in 1972 as a member of a delegation of the Black Panther Party to the People’s Republic of China, and he incorporated it into his clinical practice upon his return to Oakland, California. Small began practicing acupuncture at a time when instructional materials and therapeutic implements were difficult to obtain. He witnessed the gradual mainstreaming of Chinese medicine in the United States, accompanied by problems of differential access based on race and income.

The Normalization of Sino-French Diplomatic Relations in 1964 and the Formation of the “One-China” Principle: Negotiations over Breaking French Diplomatic Relations with the Republic of China Government and the Recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the Sole Legitimate Government

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-271
Author(s):  
Madoka Fukuda
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Republic Of China ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One

AbstractThis article examines the substance and modification of the “One-China” principle, which the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) pursued in the mid 1960s. Under this principle, a country wishing to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC was required first to break off such relations with the Republic of China (ROC). In 1964 the PRC established diplomatic relations with France. This was its first ambassadorial exchange with a Western government. The PRC, in the negotiations over the establishment of diplomatic relations, attempted to achieve some consensus with France on the matter of “One-China”. The PRC, nevertheless, had to abandon these attempts, even though it demanded fewer conditions of France than of the United States (USA), Japan and other Western countries in the 1970s. The PRC had demanded adherence to the “One-China” principle since 1949. France, however, refused to accept this condition. Nevertheless, the PRC established diplomatic relations with France before the latter broke off relations with the ROC. Subsequently, the PRC abandoned the same condition in negotiations with the African governments of the Republic of Congo, Central Africa, Dahomey and Mauritania. After the negotiations with France, the PRC began to insist that the joint communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic relations should clearly state that “the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China”. However, France refused to insert these words into the communiqué. Afterwards, the PRC nevertheless insisted on putting such a statement into the joint communiqués or exchanges of notes on the establishment of diplomatic relations with the African countries mentioned above. This was done in order to set precedents for making countries accede to the “One-China” principle. The “One-China” principle was, thus, gradually formed in the process of the negotiation and bargaining between the PRC and other governments.

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