Cultural Appropriation vs. Quackery

Christian Lander, a white American male, freely admits to his enjoyment of the very fads he identifies in his humorous and satirical blog “Stuff White People Like”. In posts #2 and #15, Lander highlights religions- mostly Eastern- to which Americans subscribe for the exoticism they offer, as well as the American appropriation of yoga, a meditative form of healing from India. These posts, albeit light-hearted, suggest that Americans collectively endorse certain activities or ideas and alter them so that they lose enough of their ethnicity to satisfy American tastes. His self-aware mockery of culturally sensitive themes contrasts to the articles this week that question the authenticity of both Ayurvedic and Tibetan medicine pitting them against the Western standard of biomedicine. 

Labels pervade American culture- especially when determining if an entity earns the title of legitimate (“legit” in colloquial American English) or fails to meet that esoteric standard, thus condemned to quackery. In Jean Langford’s article “Medical Mimesis”, she investigates the Ayurvedic medicine practice of Dr. Mistry, a self-proclaimed specialist in pulse reading, from her perspective as a medical anthropologist based here at University of Washington. Langford embarks on her mission to conduct ethnographic field work in India with a clear understanding of the criticism that Baudrillard and Taussig, well-published anthropologists, issue for those suspected of medical mimesis.

“…mimesis involved in any act of signification, suggest, on the contrary, that simulation is integral to medical practice, troubling the binary of truth and falsehood that is the foundation of scientific knowledge”, Langford reports of the analyses by Baudrillard and Taussig (Langford 24). While not entirely unbiased, she does attempt to thoroughly examine Dr. Mistry by exploring several perspectives of him and of his practice; in spite of his controversial approach, he still sees over 400 patients daily and employs a handful of assistants (Langford 28). She interviews a fellow practitioner, Dr. Upadhyay, who decries Dr. Mistry’s practice as“mimicry of both professional Ayurvedic doctors and bona fide folk practitioners” (Langford 35). In response, Dr. Mistry finds his critic’s practice too dependent on allopathic, or bio, medicine. This ironic string of judgements reflects the subjective standards that we are all guilty of applying to dissimilar practices or beliefs.

Ayurvedic pulse reading
Courtesy of Ayurveda Intro

An important aspect of the analysis on Dr. Mistry’s medical methods remains: his effectiveness in healing patients. He claims that psychological effects of illnesses produce more than half of the symptoms patients feel.  Langford allows, “Pulse reading sparks the faith that fires the healing process”, naming the faith that Dr. Mistry inspires as his treatment plan (Langford 40). The biomedicine on which Westerners rely even permeates the practices of Ayurvedic practitioners, as evidenced by Dr. Upadhyay’s strong objection to the lack of physiological knowledge Dr. Mistry displays (Langford 34).

Vincanne Adams’s “The Sacred in the Scientific” discusses the spiritual emphasis grounded in Tibetan medicine. In attempts to modernize, the Tibetan government insists that medicine turn to science instead of religion. Adams relates of Tibetan medicine, “Medical truth became visible as a set of relationships between mental perception, emotional responses, the five elements, and finally the physician’s own capacities for clear insight,” underscoring the mixture of old 12th century tradition and newly adopted concepts like the physician (Adams 560). However, the task of modernization proves difficult as spirituality and religion remain deeply ingrained and inseparable within Tibetan medicine.

Why do we need labels to decide which medical practice is legitimately Ayurvedic because it contains the perfect balance of Hindu and Western elements and which is “quackery”?  How can Tibetan medicine modernize to ease political tension but also retain its spiritual values so that it remains uniquely Tibetan instead of a Western progeny? Finally, why is it acceptable for Westerners to appropriate practices of other cultures until they resemble forms of quackery while we selectively judge dissimilar entities out of context and label them as fraudulent?

Martha Stewart and Trudie Styler (wife of Sting) on Martha Stewart Show
Courtesy of Chicago Now

Returning to the blog, post #15 reads, “Yoga is also an expensive activity. It gives white people the chance to showcase their $80 pants,” alluding to the yoga fashion industry that Americans inspired. Although this post makes several statements without supporting evidence like, “One can find more yoga studios in white neighbourhoods such as Kitsilano or Orange County than in Kolkata”, its purpose is to describe not only the extent of the fervor but also to highlight the entirely different interpretation of yoga in the states. In India yoga represents a meditative, spiritual practice that began in ancient civilization while in America, the stereotypes for yoga enthusiasts include affluent white women and celebrities. Can we deem American yoga as quackery?

I do believe American yoga appropriates from Indian culture but refrain from calling it quackery. As long as yoga enthusiasts here acknowledge they practice an interpretation and not mimicry, the highly negative connotation that quackery holds does not apply. This follows for Dr. Mistry and Dr. Upadhyay. They each practice different versions of Ayurvedic medicine and satisfy their respective patients. Neither practitioner deserves the title of quack.

Bibliography:
Adams, Vincanne. "The Sacred in the Scientific: Ambiguous Practices of Science in Tibetan Medicine." Cultural Anthropology 16.4 (2001): 542-75.

Lander, Christian. "Yoga." Web log post. Stuff White People Like. 22 Jan. 2008. Web.

Langford, Jean M. "Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan "Quack"" American Ethnologist 26.1 (1999): 24-46. Print.