Gabriele Alex

A Sense of Belonging and Exclusion: ‘Touchability’ and ‘Untouchability’ in Tamil Nadu

In India, touch is a prime marker of status and social relations. Those who are impure are ‘untouchable’,1 but those who are of a relatively higher purity are also, depending on the context, either ‘untouchable’ or ‘touchable’ only under certain fixed rules. In this paper, I will explore the contexts in which body contact and touch can be part of personal relations. I describe how these body contacts signify important social relations and establish community identity. Further, I will analyse how patterns of body contact on the one hand change during childhood, and on the other hand produce changes in the status of a social persona. The last point to be investigated is the meaning of touch as a sign for public representations.

Turning Therapies: Placing Medical Diversity

In this special issue, we are interested in considering how medical and health-related practices create new spatial forms on the global and local level—and how in turn the movement of therapies and personnel becomes palpable and meaningful only through specific spatial configurations. For instance, medical practices have become globally widespread, but they do so as part of a dynamic of shifting provision and renown. Older or earlier sites of medical provision may be replaced by newer ones for a number of reasons: improved medical technology; a more favorably regarded medical regime; conversion to a religion incorporating sole rights of medical

Peak or prolonged: the paradox of health crisis as subjective chronicity

This special issue is about the multiple intersections of therapeutic knowledge, crises and processes of diversification and mainstreaming. It starts not from a set definition of, say, medical ‘crisis’ but from the realisation that knowledge practices themselves construe crises (e.g. knowledge about epidemics, genetic testing, divination practices), thereby producing new forms of differentiating bodies and relations and/or naming and ordering them. With the two other central terms of this special issue, diversification and mainstreaming, the editors of this special issue aim to refer to these processes. ‘Diversification’ is understood here not only as the multiplication of differentiation, but as the increasing complexity resulting from the intersection and interaction of multiple markers of difference. The term ‘mainstreaming’ refers to processes that are undertaken in order to accommodate difference. It is a term used in the field of gender politics to describe the movement of gender issues from a specialised niche to an integral part of all levels of politics. However, in this special issue, the term is used in its popular understanding as in the fields of music or fashion to refer to the development of common genres and styles. Mainstreaming in this understanding results from reducing differences between elements through processes of approximation, adaptation and adjustment. It is different from standardisation which is the top-down imposition of rules. Both standardisation and mainstreaming result in homogenisation. However, while standardisation is created by externally imposed regulations, mainstreaming is a dynamic process based on a wish to be part of existing or anticipated trends and tendencies. Unlike standardisation, mainstreaming is a process that develops from the bottom-up and is not per se created by an imposition of standards, although it might be related to these. In fact, mainstreaming can be seen to arise from choices made by an individual or community wishing to conform to perceived collective normativity or wishing to be part of interactional preferences for shared co-activity. Crises can be turning points leading to standardisation and mainstreaming: in standardisation, authorities impose directives and controls to curb and dissolve the crisis; in the case of mainstreaming, different interest groups and individuals try to make sense of the crisis by reconciling the different interpretations made of it. In this struggle to control or make sense of a crisis, old medical categories may clash or merge with newly created ones in a process of ongoing diversification.

Medical pluralism reloaded

This article examines if and how medical pluralism can be reconceptualised in light of the expansion of the borders of care, where people do not simply seek care nationally but transnationally. We draw on our own research on reproductive travels, medical remittances, the circulation of medicines in migrant’s personal networks and the revitalization of local healing traditions through globally active NGOs to shed light on the emergence of what we call a transnationally opportunity space. The article focuses on the analysis on new opportunities and restrictions which emerge through the existing global economic stratification, the diverging legal frameworks and regulations in different nation states and locations, and the different levels of health care governance.

Peak or prolonged: the paradox of health crisis as subjective chronicity. Introduction.

This special issue is about the multiple intersections of therapeutic knowledge, crises and processes of diversification and mainstreaming. It starts not from a set definition of, say, medical ‘crisis’ but from the realisation that knowledge practices themselves construe crises (e.g. knowledge about epidemics, genetic testing, divination practices), thereby producing new forms of differentiating bodies and relations and/or naming and ordering them. With the two other central terms of this special issue, diversification and mainstreaming, the editors of this special issue aim to refer to these processes. ‘Diversification’ is understood here not only as the multiplication of differentiation, but as the increasing complexity resulting from the intersection and interaction of multiple markers of difference. The term ‘mainstreaming’ refers to processes that are undertaken in order to accommodate difference. It is a term used in the field of gender politics to describe the movement of gender issues from a specialised niche to an integral part of all levels of politics. However, in this special issue, the term is used in its popular understanding as in the fields of music or fashion to refer to the development of common genres and styles. Mainstreaming in this understanding results from reducing differences between elements through processes of approximation, adaptation and adjustment. It is different from standardisation which is the top-down imposition of rules. Both standardisation and mainstreaming result in homogenisation. However, while standardisation is created by externally imposed regulations, mainstreaming is a dynamic process based on a wish to be part of existing or anticipated trends and tendencies. Unlike standardisation, mainstreaming is a process that develops from the bottom-up and is not per se created by an imposition of standards, although it might be related to these. In fact, mainstreaming can be seen to arise from choices made by an individual or community wishing to conform to perceived collective normativity or wishing to be part of interactional preferences for shared co-activity. Crises can be turning points leading to standardisation and mainstreaming: in standardisation, authorities impose directives and controls to curb and dissolve the crisis; in the case of mainstreaming, different interest groups and individuals try to make sense of the crisis by reconciling the different interpretations made of it. In this struggle to control or make sense of a crisis, old medical categories may clash or merge with newly created ones in a process of ongoing diversification.

Peak or prolonged: the paradox of health crisis as subjective chronicity. Introduction to special issue: Therapeutic crises, diversification and mainstreaming

This special issue is about the multiple intersections of therapeutic knowledge, crises and processes of diversification and mainstreaming. It starts not from a set definition of, say, medical ‘crisis’ but from the realisation that knowledge practices themselves construe crises (e.g. knowledge about epidemics, genetic testing, divination practices), thereby producing new forms of differentiating bodies and relations and/or naming and ordering them. With the two other central terms of this special issue, diversification and mainstreaming, the editors of this special issue aim to refer to these processes. ‘Diversification’ is understood here not only as the multiplication of differentiation, but as the increasing complexity resulting from the intersection and interaction of multiple markers of difference. The term ‘mainstreaming’ refers to processes that are undertaken in order to accommodate difference. It is a term used in the field of gender politics to describe the movement of gender issues from a specialised niche to an integral part of all levels of politics. However, in this special issue, the term is used in its popular understanding as in the fields of music or fashion to refer to the development of common genres and styles. Mainstreaming in this understanding results from reducing differences between elements through processes of approximation, adaptation and adjustment. It is different from standardisation which is the top-down imposition of rules. Both standardisation and mainstreaming result in homogenisation. However, while standardisation is created by externally imposed regulations, mainstreaming is a dynamic process based on a wish to be part of existing or anticipated trends and tendencies. Unlike standardisation, mainstreaming is a process that develops from the bottom-up and is not per se created by an imposition of standards, although it might be related to these. In fact, mainstreaming can be seen to arise from choices made by an individual or community wishing to conform to perceived collective normativity or wishing to be part of interactional preferences for shared co-activity. Crises can be turning points leading to standardisation and mainstreaming: in standardisation, authorities impose directives and controls to curb and dissolve the crisis; in the case of mainstreaming, different interest groups and individuals try to make sense of the crisis by reconciling the different interpretations made of it. In this struggle to control or make sense of a crisis, old medical categories may clash or merge with newly created ones in a process of ongoing diversification.