This volume analyses the transition of Chinese medicine during the modern era, and the development of product and service niches in selected countries: China, Malaysia, Japan and the Philippines. By investigating the major actors behind the transition, it explores in what way and to what extent these actors affect the transition. It argues that the transnational transition of Chinese medicine is caused not only by spontaneous cultural and social factors, i.e. population growth, technological innovation and acculturation, but also by hegemonic political and economic factors such as Western influence, adoption of the philosophy of modern state, and global commodification of indigenous medical specialties.

A General History of the Chinese in Singapore documents over 700 years of Chinese history in Singapore, from Chinese presence in the region through the millennium-old Hokkien trading world to the waves of mass migration that came after the establishment of a British settlement, and through to the development and birth of the nation. Across 38 chapters and parts, readers are taken through the complex historical mosaic of Overseas Chinese social, economic and political activity in Singapore and the region, such as the development of maritime junk trade, plantation industries, and coolie labour, the role of different bangs, clan associations and secret societies as well as Chinese leaders, the diverging political allegiances including Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary activities and the National Salvation Movement leading up to the Second World War, the transplanting of traditional Chinese religions, the changing identity of the Overseas Chinese, and the developments in language and education policies, publishing, arts, and more.With 'Pride in our Past, Legacy for our Future' as its key objective, this volume aims to preserve the Singapore Chinese story, history and heritage for future generations, as well as keep our cultures and traditions alive. Therefore, the book aims to serve as a comprehensive guide for Singaporeans, new immigrants and foreigners to have an epitome of the Singapore society. This publication is supported by the National Heritage Board's Heritage Project Grant.Related Link(s)

“Rich insights into how one country has dealt with perhaps the most central issue for any human society: the health and wellbeing of its citizens.” —The Lancet This volume examines important aspects of China’s century-long search to provide appropriate and effective health care for its people. Four subjects—disease and healing, encounters and accommodations, institutions and professions, and people’s health—organize discussions across case studies of schistosomiasis, tuberculosis, mental health, and tobacco and health. Among the book’s significant conclusions are the importance of barefoot doctors in disseminating western medicine; the improvements in medical health and services during the long Sino-Japanese war; and the important role of the Chinese consumer. This is a thought-provoking read for health practitioners, historians, and others interested in the history of medicine and health in China.

This volume examines the formidable transformation of elites in China in the Republican period and how the redistribution of power, wealth and knowledge among the newly formed elites left a deep imprint on the rise of modern China up to this day.

Over the past two decades there has been great interest in cosmopolitanism across the human and social sciences. Where, earlier, it had largely been a term associated with moral and political philosophy, cosmopolitanism has now become a widely-used term in the social sciences. It is now integral to much of cultural, political and social analysis. This is the first comprehensive survey in one volume of the interdisciplinary field of cosmopolitan studies. With over forty chapters written by leading scholars of cosmopolitanism, this book reflects the broad reception of cosmopolitan thought in a wide variety of disciplines and across international borders. Both comprehensive and innovative in the topics covered, the Handbook of Cosmopolitanism Studies is divided into four sections: major theoretical debates, where the emphasis is on recent developments cultural topics in the social sciences the politics of cosmopolitanism major world varieties of cosmopolitanism. The Handbook answers the need to take modern cosmopolitanism out of its exclusive western context and relate it to the historical experiences of other world cultures. This is a major work in defining the emerging field of cosmopolitanism studies. Throughout, there is a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity, with essays covering philosophy, literary theory, history, international relations, anthropology, communications studies and sociology. The Handbook’s clear and comprehensive style will appeal to a wide undergraduate audience across the social sciences and humanities.

A Companion to Chinese History presents a collection of essays offering a comprehensive overview of the latest intellectual developments in the study of China’s history from the ancient past up until the present day. Covers the major trends in the study of Chinese history from antiquity to the present day Considers the latest scholarship of historians working in China and around the world Explores a variety of long-range questions and themes which serves to bridge the conventional divide between China’s traditional and modern eras Addresses China’s connections with other nations and regions and enables non-specialists to make comparisons with their own fields Features discussion of traditional topics and chronological approaches as well as newer themes such as Chinese history in relation to sexuality, national identity, and the environment

Traditional Chinese medicine is often portrayed as an enduring system of therapeutic knowledge that has become globalized in recent decades. In Other-Worldly, Mei Zhan argues that the discourses and practices called “traditional Chinese medicine” are made through, rather than prior to, translocal encounters and entanglements. Zhan spent a decade following practitioners, teachers, and advocates of Chinese medicine through clinics, hospitals, schools, and grassroots organizations in Shanghai and the San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing on that ethnographic research, she demonstrates that the everyday practice of Chinese medicine is about much more than writing herbal prescriptions and inserting acupuncture needles. “Traditional Chinese medicine” is also made and remade through efforts to create a preventive medicine for the “proletariat world,” reinvent it for cosmopolitan middle-class aspirations, produce clinical “miracles,” translate knowledge and authority, and negotiate marketing strategies and medical ethics. Whether discussing the presentation of Chinese medicine at a health fair sponsored by a Silicon Valley corporation, or how the inclusion of a traditional Chinese medicine clinic authenticates the “California” appeal of an upscale residential neighborhood in Shanghai, Zhan emphasizes that unexpected encounters and interactions are not anomalies in the structure of Chinese medicine. Instead, they are constitutive of its irreducibly complex and open-ended worlds. Zhan proposes an ethnography of “worlding” as an analytic for engaging and illuminating emergent cultural processes such as those she describes. Rather than taking “cultural difference” as the starting point for anthropological inquiries, this analytic reveals how various terms of difference—for example, “traditional,” “Chinese,” and “medicine”—are invented, negotiated, and deployed translocally. Other-Worldly is a theoretically innovative and ethnographically rich account of the worlding of Chinese medicine.

Many critical analyses of disability address important ‘macro’ concerns, but are often far removed from an interactional and micro-level focus. Written by leading scholars in the field, and containing a range of theoretical and empirical contributions from around the world, this book focuses on the taken-for-granted, mundane human activities at the heart of how social life is reproduced, and how this impacts on the lives of those with a disability, family members, and other allies. It departs from earlier accounts by making sense of how disability is lived, mobilised, and enacted in everyday lives. Although broad in focus and navigating diverse social contexts, chapters are united by a concern with foregrounding micro, mundane moments for making sense of powerful discourses, practices, affects, relations, and world-making for disabled people and their allies. Using different examples – including learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, dementia, polio, and Parkinson’s disease – contributions move beyond a simplified narrow classification of disability which creates rigid categories of existence and denies bodily variation. Disability, Normalcy, and the Everyday should be considered essential reading for disability studies students and academics, as well as professionals involved in health and social care. With contributions located within new and familiar debates around embodiment, stigma, gender, identity, inequality, care, ethics, choice, materiality, youth, and representation, this book will be of interest to academics from different disciplinary backgrounds including sociology, anthropology, humanities, public health, allied health professions, science and technology studies, social work, and social policy.

Cosmopolitanism is about the extension of the moral and political horizons of people, societies, organizations and institutions. Over the past 25 years there has been considerable interest in cosmopolitan thought across the human social sciences. The second edition of the Routledge International Handbook of Cosmopolitanism Studies is an enlarged, revised and updated version of the first edition. It consists of 50 chapters across a broader range of topics in the social and human sciences. Eighteen entirely new chapters cover topics that have become increasingly prominent in cosmopolitan scholarship in recent years, such as sexualities, public space, the Kantian legacy, the commons, internet, generations, care and heritage. This Second Edition aims to showcase some of the most innovative and promising developments in recent writing in the human and social sciences on cosmopolitanism. Both comprehensive and innovative in the topics covered, the Routledge International Handbook of Cosmopolitanism Studies is divided into four sections. Cosmopolitan theory and history with a focus on the classical and contemporary approaches, The cultural dimensions of cosmopolitanism, The politics of cosmopolitanism, World varieties of cosmopolitanism. There is a strong emphasis in interdisciplinarity, with chapters covering contributions in philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, media studies, international relations. The Handboook’s clear and comprehensive style will appeal to a wide undergraduate and postgraduate audience across the social and human sciences.

This book explores the dissemination of knowledge around Chinese medicinal substances from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries in a global context. The author presents a microhistory of the caterpillar fungus, a natural, medicinal substance initially used by Tibetans no later than the fifteenth century and later assimilated into Chinese materia medica from the eighteenth century onwards. Tracing the transmission of the caterpillar fungus from China to France, Britain, Russia and Japan, the book investigates the tensions that existed between prevailing Chinese knowledge and new European ideas about the caterpillar fungus. Emerging in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe, these ideas eventually reached communities of scientists, physicians and other intellectuals in Japan and China. Seeking to examine why the caterpillar fungus engaged the attention of so many scientific communities across the globe, the author offers a transnational perspective on the making of modern European natural history and Chinese materia medica.