Patterns of Resort, Prospects for Healing

Sienna Craig explores the lives of practitioners and the patients they serve, from remote mountain communities in northern Nepal to bustling cosmopolitan centers in China.
While many people who visit this exhibition might be learning about Tibetan medicine for the first time, this complex, diverse system of healing therapies, philosophies, and practices remain the frontline of health care for many individuals and communities across the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau. In this talk, Sienna Craig explores the lives of practitioners and the patients they serve, from remote mountain communities in northern Nepal to bustling cosmopolitan centers in China. How, why, and when do people seek out care by Tibetan physicians? What sorts of care do they receive? How are doctor-patient relationships formed and sustained, be they ones that occur in people’s homes or in the inpatient wards of large public hospitals? Prof. Craig considers the ways Tibetan doctors of different generations, with distinct lineages of practice and forms of authority as healers, attract and maintain clientele across urban and rural settings. She also examines how the costs associated with Tibetan medical care are negotiated, how forms of western biomedicine enter into these healing landscapes, and how these dynamics are transforming amidst larger patterns of socioeconomic, cultural, and political change in the region.
Sienna Craig is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. As a medical/cultural anthropologist, she explores the worlds of healing across cultures, the meanings people ascribe to illness, the social lives of medicines, and the ways communities navigate social change, including migration. She is the author of Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine and an editor of Medicine between Science and Religion: Explorations on Tibetan Grounds. Craig co-edits HIMALAYA, the journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies. She co-founded Drokpa, a non-profit that supports grassroots development and social entrepreneurship in the Himalayan region, and serves as a board member of One Heart World Wide, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of mothers and newborns. Dr. Craig last appeared at The Rubin to launch her book Horses Like Lightning: Stories of Passage through the Himalaya.

Bodies In Balance: The Essentials

A full weekend of talks and demonstrations on the rich subject of Tibetan medicine and concepts of wellbeing. Scholars, medical practitioners and experts meet to share their experience in eleven separate presentations. For those who wish to immerse themselves in the concepts of Tibetan medical practice, this is the weekend for you.
A conference to deepen your appreciation of the exhibitionBodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine.


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