The transcendent patterning of medical pluralism: Religion and medical practices among Miao migrants in China
Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
8-2025
Abstract
Based on ethnographic fieldwork on the medical practices of Miao internal migrants inChina, this article critiques the hierarchical and discrete ontologies of “pluralism”prevalent in anthropological studies of medical pluralism. It examines how Miaomigrants construct an informal pluralistic medical system that integrates shamanisticritual healing, herbalism, and “folk” biomedicine within a pragmatically grounded yetspiritually coherent framework rooted in Miao religion and cosmologies. Furthermore,the article explores how their medical-seeking practices, grounded in a transcendentontology of well-being, operate through affective economies of trust and renqing, thereby enhancing their medical resilience and socio-economic embeddedness into local society.
Keywords
Miao/Hmong migrants, medical pluralism, religion, folk medicine
Discipline
Asian Studies | Medical Humanities
Publication
Medical Anthropology
First Page
1
Last Page
17
ISSN
0145-9740
Identifier
10.1080/01459740.2025.2545835
Publisher
Taylor and Francis Group
Citation
WEN, Shixian; WOODS, Orlando; and GAO, Quan.
The transcendent patterning of medical pluralism: Religion and medical practices among Miao migrants in China. (2025). Medical Anthropology. 1-17.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/376
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2025.2545835