In the shadow of the healing rainbow : belonging and identity in the regulation of traditional medicine in Mauritius

Urquiza-Haas, Nayeli and Cloatre, Emilie (2023) In the shadow of the healing rainbow : belonging and identity in the regulation of traditional medicine in Mauritius. Griffith Law Review, 32 (2). pp. 236-258. ISSN 1038-3441

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Abstract

This article explores how traditional healing is regulated in the island of Mauritius. Drawing on postcolonial Science and Technology Studies and their encounter with socio-legal studies, it maps the emergence of the Ayurveda and Other Traditional Medicines Act of 1990, pointing out the selectivity of the notion of ‘tradition’ and its entanglement to broader nation-making processes, born in the process of its independence from Britain. While the social and political histories embedded in the text of the law favour the authorisation of some healing traditions and not others, outside its scope, other practices persist, and triggering competing visions about the island’s healing futures. By bringing into the frame the plurality of Mauritius’s healing landscape, where different traditions coexist despite their ambiguous legal status, this article accounts for the tensions in the regulation of traditional medicine, where the law produces its own inclusions and exclusions, and mundane legalities of everyday healing become sites of broader political questioning about the relationship between law, science, and nation-making.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Griffith Law Review
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Research Output Funding/yes_externally_funded
Subjects:
?? traditional medicineregulationmauritiusayurvedatechnofutureslegalitiesyes - externally fundedcomplementary and manual therapylawsocial sciences (miscellaneous) ??
ID Code:
202543
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
29 Aug 2023 08:50
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
19 Sep 2024 02:43