Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine

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.

Auteur

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.

Contenu

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...