7th EUROSEAS Conference
University of Naples, 12-15 September 2007

CALL FOR PAPERS

PANEL: National identity, local medicines, and the appropriation of the therapeutic field


Convenor: Claudia Merli, Uppsala University (claudia.merli@antro.uu.se)

Medical practice and health care are arenas of confrontation between local cultural processes and national projects. The notion of "biopower" is usually applied to the promotion of modern medical technologies and their appropriation of the therapeutic quest as expression of globalization at the expense of local systems of knowledge. As manifestation of specific religious or ethnic identities, local systems of therapeutic knowledge do however not only find themselves in opposition to modern medical technologies but also to privileged traditions, implying a two-front struggle. The two-front struggle means defending a contested past against claims from privileged traditions as well as securing space in the future claimed by modern technology.

This is especially evident in countries where modernization and creation of a national identity requires the assimilation of diverse ethnic and religious groups. The dominant group can elevate a particular medical tradition perceived as ideal heritage and communicating its peculiar religious-ethnic identity to 'national traditional medicine.' Such privileged knowledge can consist of both pharmacopeias and practices, massage techniques and instrumental interventions.

The general aim of the panel is to discuss the tensions emerging from the encounters between modern medical technology and competing traditional medicines, and the selection of one of the latter as "national heritage." We want to investigate also how this applies to large public health interventions occasioned by endemic health problems in Southeast Asia during historical periods both significant and critical for the construction/challenge of a national identity.

Contributions are welcome from scholars of anthropology, sociology, public health and medicine. Thematic clusters are possible. Some key terms for thematic contributions: national crises and public health, epidemics, leper, malaria, mental health, local medical treatments, minorities, medical technologies, pharmaceuticals and materia medica.

Interested participants are invited to send abstracts (about 200 words) of their
papers to the panel convenor as soon as possible and at the very latest by 1 March 2007.

Claudia Merli
PhD Candidate
Uppsala University
Department of Cultural Anthropology
Box 631
751 26 Uppsala SWEDEN
E-mail:claudia.merli@antro.uu.se
Tel. +46 (0)18 4717280
http://www.antro.uu.se

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