What is local and universal in medical knowledge? Indian medicine at home and abroad

01/07/2010 - 15:00

1 July 2010
15.00 - 17.00 hrs

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Lecture by Sujatha Venkatesh. Chaired by Dr Maarten Bode. Organised by IIAS & ASiA & AISSR Programme Group Anthropology of Health, Care and the Body

Venue: Bushuis, Zaal F2.08 B, Kloveniersburgwal 48, Amsterdam

V.Sujatha, PhD, is Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She specialises in the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of medicine, with special reference to ayurveda and siddha medicine, two Indian medical traditions. The co-authored monograph ‘Diagnosis in traditional medicine’ (1991) and her book ‘Health by the people’ (2003) drew on her doctoral work on the medical knowledge of south Indian villagers that she conceptualised as ‘medical lore’. She has designed courses in phenomenological sociology for government nursing colleges and a course on health culture and society for a Master sociology program. Her current research brings to bear the sociology of knowledge perspective to the study of medical systems in a manner that permits not only a sociological analysis of medicine, but also a clinical examination of social science from the worldview of ayurveda and siddha. In her lecture she will discuss the dynamics and functions of the labels ‘local’ and ‘universal’ by giving an account of ayurveda at home and the process of its diffusion in Europe. Her most recent work brings the discussion on indigenous systems of medicine from culture studies into the sociology of science. Sujatha is currently part of the India-German Project titled ‘Epistemological Pluralism and Bilateralism: Ayurveda in a globalising world’ for which she is carrying out fieldwork in Europe.