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Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine Martin Saxer

Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine By Martin Saxer

Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine by Martin Saxer


Condition - Very Good
Out of stock

Summary

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.

Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine Summary

Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine: The Creation of an Industry and the Moral Economy of Tibetanness by Martin Saxer

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.

Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine Reviews

This is an outstanding piece of scholarship... the overall structure of the book is excellent. * Sienna Craig, Dartmouth College

This is a timely and well-researched work that brings into focus the intersection between a globally expanding market in Tibetan medicine, the lived practice of medicine production, and issues pertinent to Tibetan identity. It is engaging and insightful, and nicely grounded ethnographically. * Denise M. Glover, University of Puget Sound

...a highly readable exploration of medical, socio-cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic issues in the industrial production of Tibetan medicine in the PRC. The author approaches this subject with a pleasing curiosity, often questioning in unexpected ways assumptions that are regularly made about Tibet. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. * Theresia Hofer, University of Oslo

About Martin Saxer

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.

Table of Contents

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

Additional information

CIN0857457721VG
9780857457721
0857457721
Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine: The Creation of an Industry and the Moral Economy of Tibetanness by Martin Saxer
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Berghahn Books
20130401
304
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine