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

Urquiza-Haas, Nayeli, 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. (doi:10.1080/10383441.2023.2249708) (KAR id:103140)

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: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1080/10383441.2023.2249708
Uncontrolled keywords: Traditional medicine; regulation; Mauritius; Ayurveda; technofutures; legalities
Subjects: K Law
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > Kent Law School
Funders: Wellcome Trust (https://ror.org/029chgv08)
Depositing User: Emilie Cloatre
Date Deposited: 06 Oct 2023 10:15 UTC
Last Modified: 08 Apr 2024 10:55 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/103140 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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