Development and Perspectives of Traditional Chinese Medicine: Local and Global Reflections

Abstract

This article explores three components of traditional Chinese medicine, both locally and globally. First, the text provides a genealogy of this ancient knowledge, starting from its (recorded) origins and continuing to the present day, emphasizing the encounters with so-called Western medicine, highlighting how the arrival of the latter ended up strengthening the native knowledge and creating a “new geography.” Second, it explores the various ways in which Chinese citizens appropriate both medical systems in contemporary China. The article concludes with an analysis of the global expansion of this knowledge, through its commoditization or as a potential resource of soft power, thus contributing to a field rarely explored by the social sciences by examining these practices and areas of knowledge, their dynamism and constant modification.