IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v22y1986i6p691-697.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rivalry and diversity among Thai curer-magicians

Author

Listed:
  • Golomb, Louis

Abstract

In central and southern Thailand neighboring practitioners of the same folk-medical specialties were found to be remarkably inconsistent in their diagnostic interpretations of similar afflictions. There appears to be little or no direct communication between local competitors among Thailand's traditional curers. Those in search of tutelage from an established practitioner must often travel long distances to find a willing tutor. What results from this pattern is a system of master-disciple networks through which curative knowledge and patient referrals flow across provincial boundaries. Rivalry among neighboring curer-magicians is so pervasive that diagnostic decisions sometimes depend in part on the relative status of previous healers on a case. The paper concludes with a discussion of the competition found among a specific group of curer-magicians, namely, Thai-Buddhist monk-practitioners. The latter rivalry may play an important role in social relations within and among Buddhist monasteries.

Suggested Citation

  • Golomb, Louis, 1986. "Rivalry and diversity among Thai curer-magicians," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 691-697, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:22:y:1986:i:6:p:691-697
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(86)90042-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:22:y:1986:i:6:p:691-697. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.