Preview

PDF, English Download (15MB) | Terms of use

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the production of Ayurveda in an Ayurvedic health resort in Kerala, South India. Both theoretical and empirical analyses are situated within the context of international health tourism and transnational practice formation. It demonstrates why and how the Ayurvedic practice at the resort, located in a popular tourist area and predominantly visited by German guests, is created through the interaction between practitioners, management, visitors, different institutions such as the Keralan department of tourism or European travel agencies, the German medical practice of the Kur and the Western concept of stress. The study argues that the resort represents a space where transnational networks and circulations converge to ultimately produce a new form of Ayurvedic practice that constitutes one specific instance of a global variety of Ayurvedic treatment – as opposed to a diluted version of a more 'authentic' Ayurveda represented in classic texts or allegedly practiced in Indian clinics as contended by scholars and practitioners alike.