1. Law and biomedicine and the making of ‘genuine’ traditional medicines in global health
- Author
-
Emilie Cloatre
- Subjects
030505 public health ,business.industry ,evidence ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,traditional medicine ,Making-of ,Research Papers ,Boundary (real estate) ,3. Good health ,03 medical and health sciences ,Knowledge-based systems ,0302 clinical medicine ,Political science ,Law ,Global health ,knowledge systems ,Joint (building) ,030212 general & internal medicine ,0305 other medical science ,business ,Biomedicine - Abstract
This paper explores the joint roles of law and biomedicine in constituting the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate (and genuine and ‘pseudo’) traditional healing. It argues that, as law and biomedicine have grown to share common understandings of the nature of knowledge,\ud they have come to act as converging colonizing forces that displace and alter ‘other’ forms of knowing and ordering. Even as regulatory\ud systems set out to recognize some forms of traditional medicine, they continue to operate on assumptions that disqualify knowledge, products,\ud and actors, that do not resemble their biomedical counterparts. This leaves traditional healing systems potentially having to either operate\ud outside the law or adapt to it by transforming themselves, potentially beyond the point of recognition, to fit better into the systems provided by law and biomedicine. The paper explores the series of dilemma this creates for those seeking to ‘regulate better’ traditional medicine.
- Published
- 2019