Dr. Yongsak Tantipidoke
Thai System of Health Wisdom Research Unit, Society and Health Institute
This study is about the healing practices for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in Northern Thailand during the AIDS epidemic and its aftermath. Based on an anthropological study, the results show the perspectives of the healers and patients on the effectiveness of local healing. Local medical knowledge, local cosmology and local morality are essential components of local healing. They fertilize the legitimizing context that nurtures and supports local healers. These components influence the perspective of healers and patients on the effectiveness of healing. This study affirms that healers and patients may view effective healing different from what is defined in biomedicine. Healing is considered effective when it can treat the ailments and generate general well-being by means of symptomatic treatment, normalize inner elements, excrete toxins, maintain dietary control, and adapt living conditions and detaching oneself from suffering. The influence of biomedicine shapes, however, the practices of healers in dealing with germs and the way they evaluate the healing outcome. Local cosmology conveys meaningful practices of the healers and patients and promotes the symbolic power of medicines. This power is generated by relating medicines to the supernatural supremacy of sacred things and the healer teachers in the local cosmology. Moral elements, like compassion, faith-related trust, power of virtue, and merit could enhance the effectiveness of local healing when the healers and the patients share the same local moral world.
(Presented in the 2017 Chulalongkorn Thai-Tai Heritage Forum: Healing and Herbal Medicine (การรักษาโรคกับการใช้ยาสมุนไพรในวัฒนธรรมไทย-ไท), 22-23 June 2017, Le Meridien Chiang Mai Hotel, Chiang Mai, organized by the Empowering Network for International Thai and ASEAN Studies, Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Lanna Studies Center, Faculty of humanities ,Chiang Mai University and Thai Language Department, School of Liberal Arts Mae Fah Luang University)