The Cross-Cultural Evidence On "Extreme Behaviors": What Can It Tell Us?
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Jackson_NYAS_final_revision_1-15-09.pdf
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54.49 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Jackson, Jean E.
Date Issued
August 2009
Journal
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Publisher
New York Academy of Sciences
Citation
Jackson, Jean E. “The Cross-Cultural Evidence on ‘Extreme Behaviors’.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1172.1 (2009) : 270-277.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Many kinds of body/mind practices are capable of producing remarkable behaviors and altered body states. A typology of such behaviors and states, defined as observable and intentional “extreme” alterations to the body, is presented. Epistemological and methodological issues are discussed: limitations of observational data, and role of meaning, intentionality, and consciousness. Rapprochement between Western medicine and Indo-Tibetan medicine requires rethinking biomedicine's radical grounding in physicality and reliance on “evidence-based medicine,” and guarding against an ethnocentric Western intellectual hegemony motivating medical science and clinical practice to colonize and subvert non-Western traditions like Indo-Tibetan Buddhist medicine.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04536.x
