 Asian Medicine in America: The Ayurvedic CaseSita Reddy
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2002, vol. 583, issue 1, 97-121 Abstract: Ayurveda, the classical South Asian medical tradition, was first introduced to American audiences in the mid-1980s as a holistic alternative to biomedical orthodoxy. This article argues that transplanted Ayurveda is shaped not only by aspects of American medical culture, but by millennial, heterodox elements of American religious culture, such as the loose cluster of beliefs and practices known as the New Age. Because New Age Ayurvedic practices occupy the ideological and statutory middle ground between medicine and metaphysics, they face a unique professionalizing dilemma: whether to present themselves as healing religions or as practicing branches of medicine. Drawing on an ethnographic study of this professionalizing dilemma in legal, clinical and popular arenas, this article shows that New Age Ayurveda--far from being a monolith--reveals a wide-ranging plurality of sub-traditions in practice. Taken together, they suggest multiple modes of reinvention and a variety of professionalizing routes that Ayurveda follows other than licensing and institutional credentialization. Date: 2002 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:583:y:2002:i:1:p:97-121 DOI: 10.1177/000271620258300107 Access Statistics for this article More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |
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