Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine (eBook)

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.

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 Large


Chapter 8. Conclusions


Fallacies

One – Industry and Modernism

Two – Globalisation and Sinicisation

Three – Knowledge

Assemblage, Revisited

Contemporary by Assemblage

Territorial by Assemblage


Bibliography
Glossary