Moving Dentists, Moving Practices: Chinese Migrant Dentistry in Calcutta, 1920–1960

This article examines how Chinese migrants from Hubei practised and developed dentistry in Calcutta from the 1920s to the 1960s. In this article, I look at the trajectory of this profession and how it evolved from being an unregulated, heterogeneous branch of medicine operating with its own logic to a vernacularised tradition that blended biomedical knowledge and practices with indigenous ones. In this evolution, I pay attention to the multiple transformations that occurred within this branch of medical practice that allowed the services offered by the Hubei Chinese to be popular, affordable and accessible. Relying on multiple interrogation transcripts, surveillance reports and interviews with two practising Chinese dentists in Calcutta, as well as one of their clients, this essay argues that Chinese dentists were highly mobile, aspirational and entrepreneurial in their efforts to maintain a balance between embracing change and maintaining a degree of autonomy in their practices.