American Chinese Medicine (original) (raw)
Related papers
Practitioner Decisions to Engage in Chinese Medicine: Cultural Messages Under the Skin
Medical Anthropology, 2009
Theories of agency and decision making have been applied to processes by which patients select therapeutic interventions. Another kind of decision making occurs when individuals choose to engage in the practice of a therapeutic modality. This article draws on fieldwork and interview data with non-Chinese and immigrant Chinese practitioners of Chinese medicine in the United States, focusing on Boston, Massachusetts, and New York City, as case illustrations. I apply theories of agency and decision making to how and why these practitioners chose to engage in Chinese modalities. I build on Volker Scheid's (2002) analysis of agency, grounded in Chinese medicine theory, to propose the Chinese concept of xin (heart-mind) as an analytical frame, suggesting that it can fruitfully be set in tension with Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus and Antonio Gramsci's discussion of the ''common-sense'' nature of hegemony. I draw on a non-Eurocentric concept to enrich the theoretical discussion of agency and decision making.
Self-Orientalization in the East Asian Medical Community
2021
Traditional medical practices have yielded to modern Western Allopathic Medicine in much of the world. However, Traditional East Asian Medicine (aka Traditional Chinese Medicine) which includes Acupuncture, Asian Herbalism, Asian Bodywork, and Meditative Breathing Practices (Taijiquan / Qigong) has grown in popularity around the world. In the United States, Traditional East Asian Medicine has entered mainstream culture, becoming licensed as a type of healthcare service. The development of this type of medicine in the United States began in the late nineteenth century with Asian immigration, but in the latter part of the twentieth century grew from a localized ethnic enclave based cultural practice into a larger social phenomenon reactive to socio cultural dynamics in the medical industrial complex. However, intrinsic in this rise and integration with majority culture has been the inculcation of Orientalized attitudinal poles that rely on stereotypical, trivialized, and racist interp...
Journal of immigrant and minority health / Center for Minority Public Health, 2012
We situate elderly Chinese immigrants’ utilization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in social contexts (e.g., family and social networks), exploring how TCM is used as a tool, a resource, and a product of meaning-construction in their everyday life. We conducted in in-depth interviews with 20 elderly Chinese immigrants in the United State, exploring the complexity of their understanding and practice of TCM. We used grounded theory to identify the set of meanings that are particular to elderly Chinese immigrants’ use of TCM as a part of their health practice. For our participants, TCM is not just a resource for illness management. Instead, incorporating TCM in their health practice allows them to: (a) perform and reaffirm their cultural identity as Chinese, (b) maintain their moral status and fulfill their social roles, and (c) pass down health knowledge and cultural heritage. Clinical implications were discussed.
Isis, 2012
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
The Globalization of Chinese Medicine
It is normally assumed that the globalization of medical practice emanates from the West, but the Chinese practice of acupuncture has proven this hypothesis incorrect. Western medicine has not rejected the concept of acupuncture. It has embraced it and has investigated the benefits that such practices provide. Since Western medicine is already framed within the epistemological context of germ theory, the problem becomes one of finding a way in which such a disparate tradition can be incorporated into current models of medicine. The explanation of this journey begins with Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions and how that model constitutes modern scientific practice. The germ theory of modern medicine is introduced and compared to the Chinese medical model of acupuncture. The incommensurability between those two models is discussed within the context of the globalization of Chinese medicine. It is argued that instead of rejecting such practices, modern medicine has incorporated them into a new theory which they call medical acupuncture, a model concomitant with the tenets of western scientific research.