Food: The Immanent Cause from Outside - Medical Lore on Food and Health in Village Tamil Nadu

Sujatha, V.

doi:10.1177/0038022920020104

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In comparison to my previous data of 1989–1990 in Tamil Nadu (Sujatha, 2002), I find that there is a major erosion of the diversity of diets in that people today eat less variety of everything: food grains, pulses, greens, meat and so on. But the food supply is now more stable and less subject to the vagaries of weather.…”

Section: Categories Of Foodcontrasting

confidence: 71%

Econometric and Existential Understanding of Food: Analysing Economic Growth and Nutritional Status in South India

Sujatha

2017

Indian Journal of Human Development

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There is much debate on the reasons for the poor nutritional status of the population amidst high economic growth in the country. A profusion of correlations and statistical averages characterizes mainstream nutritional discourses that are based on the notion of food as a thing that could be measured and understood in terms of numerical values. Much as the quantitative approach is necessary to guide public policy and to provide the basic food security to the population, it is a partial view, not adequate to understand the issues surrounding nutrition in all its dimensions. Drawing upon field data on food in rural South India, this article calls for a broader perspective on food that gives scope for people’s concerns about its quality and ecological source. It aims at providing a sociologically informed understanding of the statistical and the existential aspects of the nutrition problem.

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Section: Categories Of Foodcontrasting

confidence: 71%

Econometric and Existential Understanding of Food: Analysing Economic Growth and Nutritional Status in South India

Sujatha

2017

Indian Journal of Human Development

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“…The medical and nutritional prescription of meat and meat-based soups is commonly found in traditional ayurvedic practice. For example, physicians administering herbal medicines for night blindness with goat liver and prescribing pork for piles, apart from recommending mutton soup as the most nutritious food for weak patients (Sujatha 2002, 2011). Vegetarianism becoming intrinsic to ayurveda is a particularly post-modern Western formulation that has appeal among the upper echelons of the Hindu society.…”

Section: Ayurveda and Vegetarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Universal and the Global: Contextualising European Ayurvedic Practices

Sujatha

2020

Society and Culture in South Asia

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Fifty years ago, South Asian medicines were regarded as ethnomedicines devoid of scientific credibility as they were not verifiable under controlled laboratory conditions. By the 1990s, however, South Asian medicines entered the global health market, specially, Western Europe and North America despite the opposition from scientific lobbies. Ayurveda’s presence in Europe is not comparable to Chinese medicine and is probably fourth or fifth in the scale of importance among other complementary therapies, but it is crucial to note that it entered Europe not riding on Indian migrants or capital investment but as cultural goods promoted by European followers of Indian gurus. In other words, unlike Asian cuisines and garments taken to foreign lands by immigrants, yoga and ayurveda were directly accessed and consumed by the white-middle and upper-middle classes and were paid for privately. Does globalisation of ayurveda mean that it has also become universal? What is the relation between biomedicalisation of ayurveda in India and its spiritualisation in Europe? How is ayurveda transmitted and practiced outside India? What are the issues raised by the globalisation of ayurveda? Based on fieldwork with European practitioners of ayurveda in three European countries, this article intends to address some of these questions by tracing the trajectory of the global ayurveda through the experience of its European practitioners.

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“…Except for sporadic attempts at involving the providers of community based health knowledge and practice in community development programs through appropriate (re)training [ 11 , 12 ], these traditions could not conform to centralized state governance instruments of professionalization, licensing, certification and standardization [ 13 – 15 ]. Yet, local health traditions have continued to be practiced among communities in different parts of India even at the margins of the state [ 13 , 16 – 20 ]. A recent study showed that more than 80% of households in 14 out of 18 Indian states studied, reportedly utilized some form of local health tradition to treat episodes of minor illnesses (in the 3 months preceding the survey), in addition to its use in preventive and promotive health [ 21 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the unraveling of ‘revitalization of local health traditions’ in India: an ethnographic inquiry

Mishra¹,

Nambiar²

2018

Int J Equity Health

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BackgroundIndia has recently renewed emphasis on non-allopathic systems of medicine as a means to address the health needs of its populace. Earlier in 2002, its national health policy had sought to ‘revitalize’ community-based health knowledge and practices – jointly christened ‘local health traditions’. Yet policy texts remain silent on the actual means by which ‘revitalization of local health traditions’ should take place. Our research sought to understand the policy lessons of and for revitalization of local health traditions in the three Southern Indian states through an ethnographic inquiry in 2014–2016.MethodsOur inquiry included a narrative synthesis of policy texts tracing the history of governance processes and mechanisms pertaining to traditional medicine, including local health traditions, linking this to the activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and networks involved in “revitalization”. Through in-depth interviews, observations and case studies, we sought to understand the life worlds of local health tradition practitioners and what revitalization meant to them. Our method revealed that beyond a purely academic inquiry, we needed an (inter)action that would give greater voice to these perspectives and views leading to hosting an interactive dialogue among practitioners, NGO representatives, academics, and government officials.ResultsOur ethnographic inquiry unraveled the problematic of a litotic approach to local health traditions as those which are non- institutionalized, non-certified, non-documented; assuming the state to be the only source of power and legitimacy. Revitalization discussions were restricted (and often misled) by such an approach. Local health practitioners and others directed us to interesting possibilities of revitalization either through participatory modes of documentation of traditional health knowledge, strengthening existing collective forums for formal social recognition, and building pedagogical institutions that promote experiential learning.ConclusionWere we not enabled by ethnography as a method that changes its shape apace with emerging findings, we would have not been able to comprehensively answer our questions. This is critical because not only was this already a marginalized area of inquiry, but with any other method we risked reinforcing inequities by imposing epistemological and other hierarchies on our participants– whom we would argue were partners - in arriving at our conclusions.

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Food: The Immanent Cause from Outside - Medical Lore on Food and Health in Village Tamil Nadu

Cited by 8 publications

References 6 publications

Econometric and Existential Understanding of Food: Analysing Economic Growth and Nutritional Status in South India

Econometric and Existential Understanding of Food: Analysing Economic Growth and Nutritional Status in South India

The Universal and the Global: Contextualising European Ayurvedic Practices

On the unraveling of ‘revitalization of local health traditions’ in India: an ethnographic inquiry

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