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Volume 37, Number 1, January-June - Special Issue on the
Ethnography
of Healing Guest Editor: Laurent Pordie |
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Subaltern medicine and social
mobility: The experience of the Ezhavas in Kerala
Burton Cleetus
The revival or re-formulation of the indigenous medical
tradition among the Ezhavas under colonialism was closely
interconnected with the process of caste mobilisation, and the
augmentation of their social aspirations. For the Ezhavas, body,
health and methods of care were important sites of negotiation
with the dominant caste Hindu tradition as well as with the
western notions of science. This was accompanied by a conscious
negation of the health care and cultural practices practiced by
the Ezhavas prior to the influence of colonialism. Thus
‘modernisation’ of the indigenous health care tradition can be
seen as an attempt to carve out a space in the immediate social
environment by raising a claim to the dominant tradition as well
as being part of the western notions of Science.
Keywords: Indigenous Medicine; Caste Mobilisation;
Science; Kerala |
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