Heritage Medicine In Singapore Malay Chinese Traditions

This seminar covers two major traditions of ethno-medicine important to Singapore: Chinese and Malay. We will examine their intellectual history, evolving practices, their practitioners and patients and its impact on modern society, drawing on history, anthropology, and health research. While the two traditions have generally been studied in silos, this course places them in juxtaposition, enabling us to interrogate connections, interactions, and contestations across traditions.

The course moves forward through thematic seminars, taught in turn by the instructors. Designed to encourage comparisons, we will interrogate how each tradition is defined, the characteristics and influences shaping practice of medicine, the connections between traditional medicine and the natural world, the emergence of hybrid practices such as Peranakan, and how traditional medicine supports, complements, and contests biomedicine in the modern state.

This course is targeted for those who are keen to explore medicine beyond the scientific tradition and explore approaches that deprivilege biomedicine and institutions such as hospitals to delve into a past where healthcare was less institutionalized and regulated. It will be of value to humanities students who may be contemplating career paths in the health service (particularly in the burgeoning fields of alternative medicine) and to medical students who would like to integrate biomedical and traditional approaches to healing.