TY - JOUR
T1 - (Re)placing health and health care
T2 - Mapping the competing discourses and practices of 'traditional' and 'modern' Thai medicine
AU - Del Casino, Vincent J.
N1 - Funding Information:
In June 2001, a debate broke out in Thailand over the distribution and development of a new ‘miracle AIDS cure’ called V-1 Immunitor. 2 2 Vichai Jirathitikal, a pharmacist working in a private clinic in Southeastern Thailand, created and began to administer the drug through his clinic. Vichai developed the drug with a large block of private funding from retired Police Major General Salang Bunnang, who funded the research through his non-governmental organization, the Salang Bunnang Foundation. In support of the miracle cure, V-1 was distributed for free to over 6000 AIDS patients in Bangkok in early June 2001, and has since been distributed on several other occasions. The event raised a number of thorny issues, not the least of which was the legality of producing and distributing a drug that had not yet been approved by the Thai government's Ministry of Public Health. 3 3 When some pundits, government officials, non-governmental and AIDS activists challenged the legitimacy of V-1 as a miracle cure and demanded that it be put to a clinical test, defenders of V-1 declared that it was a Thai drug developed using Thai knowledge. It should be promoted, the supporters argued, by both governmental and non-governmental organizations because of its Thainess. Supporters of the miracle cure decried the attacks on V-1 as anti-Thai and Major General Salang Bunnang even went as far as to suggest that AIDS patients should consider drawing their blood into needles and sticking those people who would attack V-1 and stop its distribution ( N.A., 2001 ).
Funding Information:
I would like to thank Catherine Brooks, Deirdre McKay, Katharine McKinnon, Haripriya Rangan, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft of this paper and the National Science Foundation (SBR-9802091) and the University of Kentucky for their financial support of the research upon which this paper is based. I must acknowledge the Universitywide AIDS Research Program as well, which provided support for the early write-up and presentation of these research findings. It is important to thank my research mentors in Thailand, Drs. Anchalee Singhanetra-Renard and Sanay Yanarsarn of Chiang Mai University as well as the numerous people in Thailand who shared their experiences, opinions, and lives with me while I was doing this research. An earlier draft of this paper was presented in the Human Geography Seminar Series at The Australian National University and in the Geography Department's Lunchtime Seminar Series at Monash University.
Funding Information:
This was, however, not the first opening of this center. The House of Thai Health (under its new name and identity) had been open for some time. Built on the land of a member of the local village healer's group (klum mor meuang), the center had been standing for at least a year. Initially supported by a small grant from the tambon council, the structure and project had already received funding and organizational support from the local community hospital and AIDS Organization. The governor arrived after the fact to lay claim politically to an initiative that he was pursuing to expand the practice of Thai medicine in rural Chiang Mai, and to literally reinvigorate (feun fuu) this dying art, a concept that has now found itself on the national agenda.
PY - 2004/3
Y1 - 2004/3
N2 - In the wake of the AIDS crisis, 'traditional' Thai medicine has received new attention as a means by which people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) can receive some level of care. The revitalization of Thai medicine, however, is complicated by the competing organizational politics and social dynamics that regulate discourses and practices of health and health care in Thailand. This paper examines how Thai medicine is being (re)placed in the context of competing health-care systems and practices. Specifically, this analysis focuses on the complex interrelationships between 'traditional,' holistic medicine and 'modern,' allopathic medicine in a Thai context; and investigates the role of 'Thai medicine' (phaet phaen thai) and 'village medicine' (phaet pheun baan) as part of governmental and non-governmental efforts to provide health care to PLWHA in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The provisioning of such health care, however, takes place within the context of a struggle over 'local knowledge' and 'global change' and the ways in which places are organized in relation to the available treatment regimens for HIV/AIDS care. What this paper suggests is that the meanings of health and health care are inextricably linked to the complex, contested nature of social relations as they flow in, and are reworked through, particular places.
AB - In the wake of the AIDS crisis, 'traditional' Thai medicine has received new attention as a means by which people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) can receive some level of care. The revitalization of Thai medicine, however, is complicated by the competing organizational politics and social dynamics that regulate discourses and practices of health and health care in Thailand. This paper examines how Thai medicine is being (re)placed in the context of competing health-care systems and practices. Specifically, this analysis focuses on the complex interrelationships between 'traditional,' holistic medicine and 'modern,' allopathic medicine in a Thai context; and investigates the role of 'Thai medicine' (phaet phaen thai) and 'village medicine' (phaet pheun baan) as part of governmental and non-governmental efforts to provide health care to PLWHA in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The provisioning of such health care, however, takes place within the context of a struggle over 'local knowledge' and 'global change' and the ways in which places are organized in relation to the available treatment regimens for HIV/AIDS care. What this paper suggests is that the meanings of health and health care are inextricably linked to the complex, contested nature of social relations as they flow in, and are reworked through, particular places.
KW - HIV/AIDS
KW - Health-care geographies
KW - Thailand
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U2 - 10.1016/S1353-8292(03)00019-4
DO - 10.1016/S1353-8292(03)00019-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 14637287
AN - SCOPUS:0344497426
SN - 1353-8292
VL - 10
SP - 59
EP - 73
JO - Health and Place
JF - Health and Place
IS - 1
ER -