SAC presents: Mark Nichter

Hybrid Medicine for Hybrid People: Ayurveda, Popular Health Culture, and Globalization Mark Nichter will take us on a journey to South India to consider how the demand for and the practice of Ayurvedic medicine has changed over the last three decades. He will describe India’s popular health culture and pluralistic health care arena in vivid detail drawing attention to long standing as well as newly arising health care concerns and collective anxieties associated with the stresses of modern living, environmental deterioration, food adulteration, and so on. Next, he will turn his attention to factors driving the commoditization and professionalization of Ayurveda inclusive of the impact of health and medical tourism and other forces of globalization at work in the market. He will examine how Ayurveda is being adapted and transformed to appeal to and resonate with different types of people for bio-cultural reasons.