Ecological Health and the Embodiment of Nature: Environmentalism, Social Class and Nature Cure in Modern India

约瑟夫·s·阿尔特博士（匹兹堡大学）将对印度目前越来越受欢迎的替代医疗系统进行研究。该项目旨在了解作为一种具体实践的生态与替代医学之间的关系，并分析在社会差异和经济差距显著的背景下，阶级地位、健康和环保主义之间的关系。作为一种流行的、基础广泛的替代医学形式，自然疗法涉及到土地、空气、水、阳光和生食的治疗体现，从而以各种方式将个体生物与自然生态联系起来。为了了解这些联系的社会、政治和经济结构，实地研究将在印度的三个自然治疗机构、一个培训学院和两个地区图书馆进行为期13个月的研究。在印度，自然治疗是一种经过授权、国家资助、流行的替代治疗形式。研究将包括在每个治疗机构进行参与性观察，以及对客户/患者在各自社区制定的群体健康方案进行参与性观察。在预定的治疗之前和之后，将与住院病人/病人进行面谈。数据将通过编码访谈进行内容分析，并比较经济和职业状况以及具体疾病诊断在“中产阶级”区分范围内反映显着差异的患者给出的答案。数据分析将侧重于“环境主义”在治疗中是如何被表达和实践的问题，以及不同人群以何种方式理解和体验到不同的环境主义。这项研究的意义在于两个方面：检查治疗的认知和身体影响，并确定其影响是否在不同阶层和治疗环境的成员中得到不同的接受和体验。这项研究将对那些参与确定替代疗法的人产生极大的兴趣。

Dr. Joseph S. Alter (University of Pittsburg) will conduct research on an alternative medical system in India currently gaining in popularity. The project is designed to understand the correlation between ecology and alternative medicine as an embodied practice, and to analyze the relationship among class status, health and environmentalism in a context of significant social difference and economic disparity. As a popular, broad based form of alternative medicine, Nature Cure involves the therapeutic embodiment of earth, air, water, sunlight and raw foods, thus linking individual biology to the ecology of nature in various ways. To understand the social, political and economic structure of these links, field research will be conducted over thirteen months at three Nature Cure facilities, a training college and two regional libraries in India, where Nature Cure is an authorized, state funded, popular form of alternative treatment. Research will involve participant observation at each treatment facility as well as participant observation in group health regimens established by client/patients in their respective communities. Interviews will be conducted with resident client/patients before and after scheduled therapy sessions. Data will be analyzed by coding interviews for content analysis and comparing the answers given by patients whose economic and occupational status, and specific disease diagnosis, reflects significant differences within the range of "middle-class" distinctions. Data analysis will focus on the question of how "environmentalism" as articulated and practiced in the therapy, is embodied and in what ways embodied environmentalism is understood and experienced differently by different sectors of the population.The significance of the research lies in two areas: examining the cognitive and physical impact of the therapy and determining if its affects are differentially received and experienced by members of different classes and therapeutic settings. The research will be of great interest to those involved with identifying alternative therapies.