| Title |
Description |
Length |
 |
 Introduction on Richard Pottier |
 Richard Pottier is a professor of ethnology at the Université René Descartes, Paris V, faculty of human and social sciences, Sorbonne. He is a member of the “Languages, Music, and Society†laboratory (mixed research unit 8099), and of the CNRS’ national committee. A specialist on Laos, he works in the fields of the anthropology of illness and myth (myths about rice growing). In the framework of his work on therapeutic practices in Laos, he was employed by the WHO from 1973 to 1979.
|
 00:00:53 |
 |
 Study on the Lao health system and its potential for development |
 Richard Pottier explains why he chose to study the Lao ethnicity and that country’s health system. He then talks about this country’s double structure: governmental on the one hand, and the villager aspect on the other. He also highlights the interdependence between standard of living and health. |
 00:12:11 |
 |
 Lao therapeutic practices |
 After listing the various cultural substrata upon which Lao therapeutic practices are founded, Richard Pottier then introduces us to the actual practices. He explains the differences between traditional and ritualistic therapies founded mainly upon mediumnic practices on the one hand, and biomedical therapies on the other hand. |
 00:15:51 |
 |
 Medical anthropology |
 Born in the Anglo-Saxon world, namely in the United States between 1950 and 1980, medical anthropology, explains Richard Pottier, is a school of thought loyal to the evolutionist paradigm, which attempted to explain illness in order to assign to it an objective meaning. According to Pottier, this school of thought has in traditional medicine pitted empirical practices interpretable in biomedical terms against those practices deemed “irrational†or even “magical. |
 00:02:56 |
 |
 Anthropology of illness |
 Richard Pottier states he belongs to the field of anthropology of illness, which appeared in France and the United States at around the same time. Unlike medical anthropology, this branch seeks to study illness through a subjective dimension and not according to the biomedical conception. Anthropology of illness uses three key terms that were devised by Allan Young: disease (nosological meaning), sickness (social dimension), and illness (subjective dimension). These English terms are also widely used in France. |
 00:04:22 |
 |
 Lao culture, the product of “syncretism without synthesis†|
 Lao civilization is the result of superimposing various socio-historical strata: Thai and Indian with a predominant presence of Buddhism. While they are completely heterogeneous and incompatible, the worldviews from these different influences find coherence on the unconscious level. As Richard Pottier tells us, this is because these notions refer to the same semantic structures on the unconscious level. |
 00:07:26 |
 |
 "The ‘universal uncanniness’ of origin myths" |
 While researching therapeutic practices, Pottier was led to the question as to whether or not there was a myth at the origin of medicine. To his great surprise, he was told the myth about the origin of rice growing. He understood that this myth was really a myth about the human condition and he noted that similar myths were found on all five continents. This led Pottier to using the expression “universality of origin myths.†According to him, the structure of a myth is what determines its symbolic weight. |
 00:10:06 |
 |
 Structure of myth |
 Richard Pottier analyzes the structure of myths according to Lévi-Strauss’ theories. Myths are rooted in the concordance of several semantic structures, or codes. There is, however, a limit to Lévi-Strauss’ theory: his interpretation of myths was inspired by theories on the social contract, on the passage from nature to culture. |
 00:05:33 |
 |
 Interpreting myth: theory put forward by Richard Pottier |
 Richard Pottier thinks that the origin myth is what allows subjects access to the symbolic order, i.e., to the status of being a responsible subject. He shares his grand hypothesis with us: symbolism is the psychic mechanism that enables the subject to overcome his original duality, to live with an unconscious and a conscious mind. |
 00:03:59 |
 |
 Richard Pottier’s upcoming publications |
 After his book called Anthropologie du Mythe, a study based on a non-“Buddhisized†version of the origin myths about rice growing (myth of the rice ginny), Richard Pottier has now turned to a “Buddhisized†version of the same myth. He is also interested in the founding myths of dynasties that serve to legitimate dynasties’ authority, as well as power relationships between ethnicities and social categories. |
 00:02:06 |
Anthropology of illness and myth in Laos and in South-East Asia
