Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan "Quack"
Abstract
Drawing on recent insights into mimesis, I address the question of authenticity in indigenous medicine through an ethnography of an Ayurvedic pulse reader. I trace the conflicting rhetorics of authenticity spun by the doctor, the colleagues who consider him a quack, and myself. Ultimately I question the rituals of signification by which distinctions are drawn between medicine and placebo, doctor and quack, expertise and gimmickry, and between authentic cultural object and consumeroriented copy, [medicine, mimesis, semiotics, Ayurveda, India, quackery]
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A model applied to healing syncretism would suggest that what seems like syncretism is actually a particular moment in an ongoing intercultural mimetic and counter-mimetic reverberation.
“it follows that a model applied to healing syncretism would suggest 'that what seems like syncretism is actually a particular moment in an ongoing intercultural mimetic and counter-mimetic reverberation' (Taussig 1987, In Langford 1999: 33).”
From ‘Traditional’ Healers, Speaking and Motivation in Vava'u, Tonga: Explaining Syncretism and Addressing Health Policy (2010) · cites this paper as Langford 1999
Cites
Beyond Occidentalism: Toward Nonimperial Geohistorical Categories
Coronil, F. (1996) · Cultural Anthropology · doi:10.1525/can.1996.11.1.02a00030 · Cited by 881 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Coronil (1996) writes that such narratives reproduce the metaphysical binary of East and West.”
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The development of modern yoga: A survey of the field
Newcombe, S. (2009) · Religion Compass · doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00171.x · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Poltorak, M. (2010) · Oceania · doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.2010.tb00069.x · Cited by 10 · see citing works
- Authors
- Langford, J. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Langford, Jean M.
- Venue
- American Ethnologist
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1999-02
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 24-46
- ISSN
- 0094-0496 (ISSN-L)
- 1548-1425
- OpenAlex
- W2157523984
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 19.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Ethnologist (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › History of Medicine Studies
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Indigenous Studies in Latin America
- Keywords
- mimesis, authenticity, indigenous medicine, Ayurveda, quackery, placebo, medical expertise, semiotics, signification, consumerism, cosmopolitanism, physician-patient relationship
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