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Traditional medicine, legitimacy and nationalist doxa in pandemic-era Mongolia

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  • Elizabeth Turk

Abstract

Considering the legacy of seven decades of Soviet medicine, Western or ‘European medicine’ dominates public health discourse today, and guided most Mongolians’ medical decisions for COVID-19 prevention and treatment. However, over a year into the pandemic, the Mongolian Ministry of Health endorsed traditional medicine as a complimentary strategy for the treatment of mild and moderate COVID-19 cases, a decision coinciding with skyrocketing transmission rates, extreme lock-down measures, and an unprepared and aging medical infrastructure. This article explores how traditional medicine came to be seen as a legitimate strategy in combating COVID-19, and officially endorsed by the state. Drawing on Bourdieu’s work, it suggests that nationalism as doxic knowledge played an important role in legitimacy-making, but not in isolation. By framing traditional medicine as biomedically efficacious, thereby appealing to the disposition to Western conventions of scientific rationality widely held in public culture, traditional medicine was made more palatable to the public.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth Turk, 2025. "Traditional medicine, legitimacy and nationalist doxa in pandemic-era Mongolia," Central Asian Survey, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 543-565, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:44:y:2025:i:4:p:543-565
    DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2025.2542265
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