University of Heidelberg

Contact information

Karl Jaspers Centre
Voßstrasse 2, Building 4400
Room 014
69115 Heidelberg
Germany

Email:

pordie@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de

Phone:

+49 (0) 6221 54 4359

Fax:

+49 (0) 6221 54 4012

Projects

• C4 Making India a Global Healthcare Destination

Curriculum vitae

Laurent Pordié is a Research Lead (JRGL) with the Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia & Europe’ at the University of Heidelberg. He is also a Researcher with the CNRS, in a joint CNRS-EHESS-INSERM unit focused on medicine, science and society (Cermes3), and teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris.

Laurent, who holds doctorates in both anthropology and pharmacy, is specialized in the social studies of science and medicine in India. His works concern transnational healthcare and medical travels, therapeutic and pharmaceutical innovation, the social transformation of Indian and Tibetan learned medicine, ideas of medical efficacy, and the politics of healing.

Before joining the Cluster in Heidelberg, Laurent served for 5 years as the Head of the Department of Social Sciences, French Institute of Pondicherry (Unit 21 CNRS–MAEE). There he found and led the International Programme “Societies and Medicines in South Asia” from 2002 to 2010. Laurent also held visiting appointments in the Joint Programme in Medical Anthropology at UC San Francisco & UC Berkeley (2011), in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago (2010) and at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (2006-2008). He was awarded the Baron Satsuma Chair by the University of Louvain in 2004.

He is currently involved in three funded research programmes:

• "Making India a Global Healthcare Destination", Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia & Europe’, University of Heidelberg -- Coordination;
• The Indian project of "Local Knowledge, Market Construction and Globalization: New regimes of Pharmaceutical Innovation" (India vs. Brazil), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), Paris -- Coordination.
• Advances in Research on Globally Accessible Medicine (AROGYAM), Indian-European Research Networking Programme in the Social Sciences (ANR-DFG-ESRC-NWO with ICSSR) -- Member.

Laurent is a member of the British Academy’s Societies for South Asian Studies in the Research Group on South Asian Medicine (since 2005) and of the IUCN Specialist Commission on South Asian Medicinal Plants (since 2002). He is also part of the editorial board of Anthropologie & Santé. His honours include the Colleagues Choice Award of the ICAS Book Prize (2009), the French Parliamentary Reserve (Research and Higher Education Mission), Paris (2007) and the Rolex Award, Category Science and Medicine (2000).

He is also the co-founder (1997) and Research Director of Nomad RSI, an organization which implements projects, promotes young research and aims to facilitate dialogue between academic researchers and health development workers in the field of therapeutic practices, medical pluralism and the environment.

PhD supervision in Heidelberg:

• Sandra Bärnreuther (2009--). Technologies in Circulation: Assisted Reproduction in India.
• Christoph Cyranski (2008--). Oil Massages, Purges and Beach Holidays: Ayurvedic Health Tourism in Kerala, South India.
• Sinjini Mukerjee (2009--).  From Healthcare to Hospitality: Transplant Tourism and the Changing Healthcare Sector in India.

Selected publications

Books and special issues

• Healing at the Periphery, ed., Durham and London: Duke University Press (in press).
• Savoirs thérapeutiques asiatiques et globalisation, Special Issue of Revue d'Anthropologie des Connaissances 5(1), 2011.
• Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World. Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice, ed., London and New York: Routledge (Needham Research Institute Series), 2008. [paperback edition, 2011]. Winner of the ICAS Book Prize 2009.
• The Ethnography of Healing, Special Issue of Indian Anthropologist 37(1), 2007.
• Panser le monde, penser les médecines. Traditions médicales et développement sanitaire, ed., Paris: Karthala, 2005.
• The Expression of Religion in Tibetan Medicine, Pondicherry: FIP, PPSS 29, 2003.

Articles and chapters

• Sortir de l’impasse épistémologique. Nouveaux médicaments et savoirs traditionnels, Sciences Sociales et Santé 30(2), 2012, in press.
• Branding Indian Aromatherapy. Innovative Spaces in the Transnational Wellness Industry, in Volker Scheid and Hugh MacPherson (eds.) Integrating East Asian Medicine into Contemporary Heathcare, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2012.
• Se démarquer dans l’industrie du bien-être. Transnationalisme, innovation et indianité, Anthropologie & Santé 3, 2011 (link).
• Accentuations et pragmatismes. Le savoir médical tibétain à destination des étrangers, Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances 5(1): 99-130, 2011.
• Introductory remarks on traditional medicine (with C. Blaikie), in N. Savajol, V. Thoun, S. John, Traditional Therapeutic Knowledge of the Bunong People in North-eastern Cambodia, Phnom Penh: Nomad RSI, 2011.
• Savoirs thérapeutiques asiatiques et globalisaion, Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances, 5(1): 1-12, 2011.
• The politics of therapeutic evaluation in Asian medicine, Economic & Political Weekly XLV (18): 57-64, 2010. Abstract
• Médecines traditionnelles, in F. Landy (ed.), Dictionnaire de l’Inde contemporaine, Paris : Armand Colin, 2010.
• Pharmacopées, in F. Landy (ed.), Dictionnaire de l’Inde contemporaine, Paris : Armand Colin, 2010.
• Médecines, in C. Clémentin-Ojha, C. Jaffrelot, D. Matringe et J. Pouchepadass (eds.), Dictionnaire de l’Inde, Paris: Larousse, 2009. Read
• Reformulating ingredients: Outlines of a contemporary ritual for the consecration of medicines in Ladakh, in M. van Beek and F. Pirie (eds.), Modern Ladakh: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuity and Change, Leiden & Boston: Brill Publishers, 2008. Abstract and Review
• Télescopages religieux en médecine tibétaine. Ethnographie d’un praticien musulman, Puruá¹£ārtha 27: 67-97, 2008. Abstract
• Tibetan medicine today. Neo-traditionalism as an analytical lens and a political tool, in L. Pordié (ed.), Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World. Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice, London & New York: Routledge (Needham Research Institute Series), 2008. Abstract
• Hijacking intellectual property rights. Identities and social power in the Indian Himalayas, in L. Pordié (ed.), Tibetan Medicine in the Contemporary World. Global Politics of Medical Knowledge and Practice, London & New York: Routledge (Needham Research Institute Series), 2008. Abstract
• L’évaluation thérapeutique des remèdes végétaux traditionnels, in F. Hallé et P. Lieutaghi (eds.), Aux origines des plantes. Tome 2 : Des plantes et des hommes, Paris : Fayard, 2008.
• Buddhism in the everyday medical practice of the Ladakhi amchi, Indian Anthropologist 37(1): 93-116, 2007.
• Une question de réseaux. Développement local et trans-nationalisation de la médecine tibétaine au Ladakh, Actes en ligne du 3eme Congrès du Réseau-Asie – IMASIE : CNRS, Institut des Mondes Asiatiques, 2007.
• Ethnographies of healing, Indian Anthropologist 37(1): 1-12, 2007.
• Médecine traditionnelle et conflits interreligieux au Ladakh, La Revue de l’Inde 7 : 157-170, 2007. Abstract
• Remarks on a widely conceived aporia: individual commitment and epistemological distantiation in anthropology, in J. Baujard (ed.), La restitution des données dans la recherche en sciences sociales, New Delhi: AJEI-CSH, 2005.
• Claims for intellectual property rights and the illusion of conservation. A brief Anthropological unpacking of a ‘development’ failure. in Y. Aumeeruddy-Thomas et al. (eds.), Wise Practices in Sustainably Managing Himalayan Medicinal Plants, Kathmandu: IDRC, UNESCO, WWF Publ., 2005.
• Rethinking taxonomy in the age of technology: Perspectives and limitations of a new informatics tool for conservation in the Himalayas (with P. Grard), in Y. Aumeeruddy-Thomas et al. (eds.), Wise Practices in Sustainably Managing Himalayan Medicinal Plants, WWF Publ., 2005.
• L’inéluctable rencontre : Traditions de soin et développement sanitaire, in L. Pordié (ed.), Panser le monde, penser les médecines. Traditions médicales et développement sanitaire, Paris : Karthala, 2005.
• Emergence et avatars du marché de l’évaluation thérapeutique des autres médecines, in L. Pordié (ed.), Panser le monde, penser les médecines. Traditions médicales et développement sanitaire, Paris : Karthala, 2005.
• La pharmacopée comme expression de société. Une étude himalayenne, in J. Fleurentin ; J.M. Pelt et G. Mazars (eds.), Des sources du savoir aux médicaments du futur, Paris : Editions IRD, 2002. Abstract
• Research and International Aid: A Possible Meeting, Ladakh Studies 15: 33-42, 2001.