首页 | 本学科首页   官方微博 | 高级检索  
   检索      


Suffering the Winds of Lhasa: Politicized Bodies, Human Rights, Cultural Difference, and Humanism in Tibet
Authors:Vincanne Adams
Abstract:Tibetan refugees and Western activists note that if universal human rights standards were enforced in China, Tibetans would suffer less and come closer to political independence. This article explores potential problems of universalism and individualism in human rights discourse by examining understandings of the body and suffering among Lhasa Tibetan women. Data are taken from accounts of political prisoners and women patients at Lhasa's traditional Tibetan medical hospital. The data suggest a collective subjectivity, based on ideas about karma and congruencies of body, mind, and society that contrast with those found in international human rights discourse. Tibetans are forced to adopt universalist and individualist positions to make their claims for human rights heard while ironically articulating ideas about suffering that would contest such universalist positions. The article proposes a need for alternative conceptualizations of human rights taken from Tibetan epistemologies of suffering, and illustrates the utility of medical anthropological inquiries about embodiment and subjectivity for addressing larger political debates about human rights. Traditional Tibetan Medicine, Human Rights, Epistemology, Bodily Suffering]
Keywords:
设为首页 | 免责声明 | 关于勤云 | 加入收藏

Copyright©北京勤云科技发展有限公司  京ICP备09084417号