Dissertation Research: Reconfiguring Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Comparative Transnational Study in China and the United States

本论文是对中国传统医学通过融入中国和美国的生物医学主流而被改造和改造的文化分析。这项研究考察了跨国背景如何在日常实践中塑造中医在特定适当科学的配置，以谈判其医学合法性。通过分别在上海和旧金山的中医药社区进行实地考察，并突出这两个地区之间的跨地区联系，该项目既具有可比性，又具有跨国性质。它将使用参与者观察、访谈、统计调查和档案研究，比较上海和旧金山各医疗机构的中医结构和实践，并追踪从业者如何跨越机构和国家边界，打造跨当地社区。这个项目旨在开发一种过程的、互动的文化模式，它立即取代了中医的原始主义代表，并超越了西方，分析了科学的生产和实践。在更广泛的层面上，这项研究将揭示在日益跨国的世界中产生特定形式的知识、身份和社区的过程。

This dissertation project is a cultural analysis of the process by which traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is reinvented and transformed through its integration into biomedical mainstreams in China and the U.S. This study examines how transnational contexts shape the configurations of TCM at specific appropriate science in daily practices to negotiate their medical legitimacy. By conducting fieldwork among TCM communities in Shanghai and in San Francisco respectively, and by foregrounding the translocal nexus between these two locales, this project is both comparative and transnational. It will use participant observation, interviews, statistical surveys and archival research to compare the structure and practice of TCM at various medical institutions in Shanghai and San Francisco, and to trace how practitioners travel across institutional and national boundaries to forge translocal communities. This project aims to develop a processual, interactive model of culture which at once dislodges the primordialist representation of TCM, and looks beyond the `West` to analyze the production and practice of science. At a broader level, the study will shed light on the processes by which specific forms of knowledges, identities, and communities are produced in the increasingly transnational world.