Other-worldly : making Chinese medicine through transnational frames /

This report of anthropologist Zhan's ethnographic study from 1995 to 2005 on the "worlding" of traditional Chinese medicine encompasses her visits to clinics, hospitals, and schools of traditional Chinese medicine in Shanghai and the San Francisco Bay Area as well as interviews with numerous practitioners, teachers, students, and patients. The term "worlding," according to Zhan, is not a replacement for globalization, nor does it simply refer to a superficial introduction of traditional Chinese medicine to the Western world. When presenting authenticity versus diversity in discourses and practices of traditional Chinese medicine in global displacements and translocality, Zhan argues that instead of its being a static and isolated entity, translocal encounters in different sociocultural environments constantly shape, define, and reinvent traditional Chinese medicine. These encounters' interpretations, practices, and interactions, even unbalanced or uneven, demonstrate the dynamic nature of traditional Chinese medicine and contribute to its open-ended development in the global arena. Zhan goes further to advocate additional ethnographic research of "worlding" of traditional knowledges in the process of globalization. A precious addition to medical anthropology, China studies, and globalization studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. A. Y. Lee George Mason University