Taking traditional knowledge to the market

Bode, Maarten:
Taking traditional knowledge to the market : the modern usage of the Ayurvedic and Unani industry (1980-2000) / Maarten Bode. - Hyderabad : Orient Longman, 2008. - xi, 259 S. - (New Perspectives in South Asian History ; 21)
Hochschulschrift. Teilw. zugl.: Amsterdam, Univ., Diss., 2004 unter dem Titel: Ayurvedic and Unani health and beauty products : reworking India's medical traditions
ISBN 978-81-250-3315-8
Rs. 625,00
US$ 14,50 (Munshiram Manoharlal)
US$ 15,75 (Biblia Impex)
US$ 40,50 (Bagchee)

Beschreibung
Taking Traditional Knowledge to the Market explores the paradox at the heart of the ayurvedic and unani medicine manufacturing industry - to present itself as modern and traditional, common and professional at the same time. On the one hand, the natural, wholesome and authentic nature of these medicines is juxtaposed with the ‘synthetic’, ‘violent’ and ‘iatrogenic’ character of western medicines, which dominate the Indian market. They are linked to Indian popular culture, the heyday of Indian civilisation, and a humane approach to medicine. At the same time, large ayurvedic and unani manufacturers use modern science and technology to create a competitive edge and distance themselves from the image of backwardness, that also sticks to Indian medical traditions. Based on an ethnographic fieldwork, from 1996 to 2002, Maarten Bode studies five Indian ayurvedic and unani medicine firms—Hamdard, Zandu, Dabur, Himalaya and Arya Vaidya Sala. The narrative follows the perspective of these manufacturers and hence provides an insight into the categorisations and the characteristics of the consumer. Bode also reveals that researches conducted by large ayurvedic and unani manufacturers on their best-selling brands follow logic-positivistic and biomedical lines, often ignoring humoral concepts and classical pharmacological notions. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
List of illustrations
Preface
List of abbreviations
1. The Anatomy of the Study: Object, Method and Process. 1
2. The Kitchen, the Government and the Market: The Commoditisation of Indian Medicines. 25
3. Manufacturers, Products and Markets: Popular Culture Medicine, Biomedical Enclaving, and Humoral Clinical Medicine. 74
4. Reworking Ayurvedic and Unani Medicines through Modern Science and Technology: The Gap between Humoral and Modern Pharmacology. 131
5. Indian Medicine, Authenticity and Identity: The Construction of an Indian Modernity. 174
6. The Representation of Indian Indigenous Medical Products in Advertising: Tradition, Modernity and Nature. 198
Conclusion. 222
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Autor
Maarten Bode is involved in a research project, "The Politics of Value and the Commercialisation of Ayurveda: Medicines, Prescribers, Dispensers and Patients, 1980–2010", and is scheduled to start his work as a researcher at the Department of Medical Anthropology and Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam in May 2008. IIAS profile.

Quellen: Orient Blackswan; Vedams Books; Bagchee; Munshiram Manoharlal; WorldCat.
Schlagwörter: Ayurveda; Medizin