Doctors for Democracy
Health Professionals in the Nepal Revolution

An ethnography about the relationship between politics and medicine in Nepal.

Vincanne Adams (Author)

9780521585484, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 March 1998

266 pages, 9 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

This book examines the role of the Nepali physicians in the revolutionary changes in 1990. These doctors are trained in the Western tradition, and participate in international scientific debates, yet they have always been concerned to develop a form of medical practice that was relevant to Nepali conditions, and which could speak to local conceptions about health, and so their medical practice was always politicized. Vincanne Adams argues that the commitment of these professionals to the values of science, and to public health, was crucial in their political activity, and that ideas and practices associated with the notions of 'democracy' and of 'science' supported each other. Describing her book as 'a story that explores how very fine the line is between politics and scientific medical truth claims', it therefore encompasses both the modern political history of Nepal and the role of medicine in a poor, largely rural, Hindu kingdom.

1. Introduction
2. Doctors, science and democracy in the developing world
3. History and power in Nepal
4. Revolutionary medicine: scientists for democracy
5. Dividing lines: motivations of the medical professionals
6. Medicine and politics
7. Post-revolutionary political medicine: corruption or validation of truth?
8. Science, fetishism, truth, and privilege.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]