Change and Continuity of Yi Medical Culture in Southwest China

263 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.This study is based on fourteen months of fieldwork among two subgroups of the Yi, Lolopo and Nuosu, living in the two Yi autonomous prefectures in southwest China. After over forty year's development, these two subgroups show quite different levels of both receptivity to biomedicine and incorporation of state-run health care service into their own medical systems. This work provides a comprehensive ethnographic account of health care practices in the two communities. Throughout this research, I examine the cultural and historical discrepancies which contribute to the different reactions towards the state-run health care network and biomedicine, and present the interplay of political, economic, religious, and cognitive factors in people's medical practice and ethnic identity.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD