Imagined lives, suffering, and the work of culture: The embodied discourses of conflict in modern Tibet

Journal/Book: Med Anthropol Q. 1999; 13: 4350 North Fairfax Drive Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22203, USA. Amer Anthropological Assoc. 391-412.

Abstract: This article explores the cultural epidemiology of rlung (''loong'') disorder among Tibetans living in the cities and towns of the modem Chinese state of Tibet. Rlung, glossed as air or wind, is the most important of the three humors of the classical Tibetan ethnomedical system. Considered by Tibetans to be contingent upon multiple social, emotional, and religious phenomena, rlung disorders are fertile ground for the development of etiological discourses that incorporate the social and political crises that are part of the rapidly changing Tibetan plateau. In this essay I locate rlung disorder in a confluence of Tibetan ethnomedical constructions of the mind-body-universe linkage, in which rlung stands as the chief symbolic mediator, with ethnic conflict, rapid economic development, and the localization of global debates over Tibetan suffering and human rights.

Note: Article Janes CR, Univ Colorado, Dept Anthropol, Denver,CO 80202 USA

Keyword(s): Tibet; ethnomedicine; politics; economic development

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