In Tibetan medicine, an individual's urine sample, which a Tibetan doctor (amchi) examines with acute attention to diagnose a patient's illness, is compared to a merchant in ancient times who goes from door to door to sell merchandise and who is well acquainted with everything happening in a town. This analogy implies that, in order to get a bigger picture of what is happening in a town, one should rely on someone who is on the ground all the time rather than on a leader. This collection of essays, edited by Laurent Pordié and Stephan Kloos, employs a similar tactic by paying close attention to “local microprocesses at the village level” (14–15) to study the large-scale transformation of Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) in the Indian Himalayas. Likewise, the introduction by Pordié and Kloos aptly supports their choice of the catchy main title, Healing at the Periphery, by...
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