“Elisabeth Hsu expertly weaves ethnography and theory to provide the reader with a lived experience of a journey of Chinese medical practices in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda … Hsu's work is rich with anthropological theory to help make meaning of her findings and, in turn, generously contributes to theory by virtue of the extensive findings and analyses presented.” • Paul I Kadetz, University of Global Health Equity

“This is a wonderful and very compelling book. Content is exhilarating, rich and intense throughout in a highly original fashion.” • Julie Laplante, University of Ottowa

Based on fieldwork conducted between 2001-2008 in urban East Africa, this book explores who the patients, practitioners and paraprofessionals doing Chinese medicine were in this early period of renewed China-Africa relations. Rather than taking recourse to the ‘placebo effect’, the author explains through the spatialities and materialities of the medical procedures provided why -  apart from purchasing the Chinese antimalarial called Artemisinin -  locals would try out their ‘alternatively modern’ formulas for treating a wide range of post-colonial disorders and seek their sexual enhancement medicines.

Series: Volume 20, Epistemologies of Healing

Subject: Medical Anthropology

Area: Africa

LC: R651.A353 H78 2022

BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; MED040000 MEDICAL/Holistic Medicine; SOC008010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Ethnic Studies/African Studies