Ethnomedicine and Tribal Healing Practices in India

Sunita Reddy PhD in Anthropology with two decades of research teaching experience and teaching at Jawaharlal Nehru University for the past 19 years. She has published many research papers in national and international peer-reviewed journals and contributed papers in edited volumes. Her areas of research are disasters, women and child health, medical tourism, surrogacy, ethnomedicine and child abuse. She has presented more than 100 papers in national and international seminars and conferences. She served as Deputy Director (R&D), School of Social Sciences and is an Adjunct Faculty, at the Special Centre for Disaster Research, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She is the author of the book Clash of Waves: Post Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation in Andaman and Nicobar Islands Indos Publication 2012, editor of the books Marginalisation in Globalising Delhi: Issues of Land, Livelihood and Health Springer 2016, and Editor of The Asian Tsunami and PostDisaster Aid, Springer 2018. She is the Founder and Chairperson of Anthropos India Foundation, a trust, which is a research and policy organisation and Honorary President of SATAT, a national NGO working with Women and Children in New Delhi. She participated in national debates on surrogacy on many national TV channels. She has many awards in sports and co-curricular activities too and recently received the ‘Women Empowerment Award—2021’ on International Women’s day by Delhi State Legal Services Authority and Bhagidari Jan Sahyog Samiti.Nemthianngai Guite is an Associate Professor in the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has taught in the Department of Social Work, Delhi University as an Assistant Professor from March 2005 to July 2016 (11 years). She was awarded the Fulbright Nehru Post Doctoral Fellowship by USIEF in 2016 and Shastri Mobility Programme by ShastriIndo Canadian Institute (SICI) in 2018. She has organised bi-national online conference funded by SICI (2022). She has attended national and xv xvi Editors and Contributors international conferences, presented papers; and published in peer-reviewed journals on primary health care and indigenous medicine, Indigenous healing systems; Global Discourses on Biodiversity and Indigenous Medicinal knowledge, health care social work practice, maternal and child health and health issues concerning indigenous communities of India’s northeastern region. She authored the books Indigenous Medicine and Health Care: A Study among Paite Tribe in Manipur (2011) and Global Discourse and Local Realities towards Indigenous Medicine (2014). She undertook and completed various research projects funded by organisations like Oxfam India (2014), Save the Children (2015), IGSSS (Indo Global Social Service Society) (2015) and ICSSR (2021; 2022).Bamdev Subedi is Medical Anthropologist with interest in public health issues. He holds an M.A. in Anthropology from the Tribhuvan University and M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Social Sciences in Health from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has more than a decade of working experience in the health and development sector in Nepal. His research interests include traditional medicine, medical pluralism and the political economy of health. His M.Phil. work was on the ‘Indigenous Healing Practices’ and his Ph.D. on ‘Medical Pluralism.’ He has presented a dozen papers in seminars and conferences and has published half a dozen research papers in edited volumes and research journals. Currently, he is working on his forthcoming book Medical Pluralism in Nepal.

• Introduction: Ethnomedicine and Indigenous Healing Practices among the Tribes of India: Challenges and Possibilities of Integration.- Practices and Praxis: A Critical Look at Medical Anthropology in India.- Ethnomedicine as Public Health.- Biological Diversity Act 2002, An Implementation Challenge In India: An Experience Sharing From Sikkim.- Chronicles Of Exploitation: Practice And Practitioners Of Ethnomedicine In The Quagmire Of Market Dynamics Of Pharmacopeia.- Indigenous Healing Practices in the Himalaya: Use of Medicinal Plants and Health Development in Nepal.- The Folk Healing Practices of the North East States.- Understanding Etiology of Diseases: Special Reference to Lepcha Communities of Dzongu, Sikkim.- Language and Traditional Healing Practice: A Study of Limbu Community.-The nongai dawai Khasi healers of Meghalaya.- Amchi system in Ladakh: Challenges in the New World.- Health Care Systems among Broq-Pa Tribe.- Ethnomedicine in Question: The Case of Tharu Healers and Healing Practices.- Ethics, Morality and Healing: A Bhil Perspective.