29/10/2025
"Between Land and Body: Epistemologies and Practices of Amchi Medicine in Kinnaur and Spiti"
Join the talk by Mridul Surbhi, PhD Candidate in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Delhi, via zoom this Thursday, 30 October, 6.30pm India time (IST)
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/92358826919?pwd=UGexwHkOmrEIvA7cvy9pLfXwFJ2LvP.1
About the Speaker: Mridul Surbhi is a Doctoral Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She graduated with a BA in Philosophy from Gargi College, Delhi University, and an MA in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics. Her doctoral work centers on the lived experiences of non-institutionally trained Amchi in the Indian Himalayas. She conducts long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Kinnaur, Spiti, and Kullu (Himachal Pradesh), focusing on Sowa Rigpa knowledge transmission, ethics, and medicine making. She has previously worked in the capacity of researcher and program coordinator with the Dalai Lama and Tong-Len Trust in Dharamsala (2015–2018). Currently, she is part of a local Amchi self-help group involved in the collection and preservation of medicinal plants, along with being a Himalayan contributor to the FWF Austrian Science Fund Research Project (2022-2025) "Pandemic Narratives of Tibet and the Himalayas".
Abstract: This colloquium presents my doctoral research, an ethnographic exploration of Sowa Rigpa practice, also called Amchi medicine, in Spiti. I foreground the figure of the Amchi–a practitioner of Sowa Rigpa–their embodied forms of knowledge, skill, and calling. Drawing on over three years of immersive fieldwork, I trace how healing is constituted in these remote Himalayan valleys, not merely as a medical endeavor, but a lived philosophy of care, practice, and community life. My dissertation is structured in two parts. Part I examines the processes of knowledge transmission, apprenticeship, and professional identity. Here, I interrogate epistemological questions of what it means to know in Sowa Rigpa, how tacit and textual knowledge intertwine, and how Amchi navigate questions of legitimacy. Part II turns to lived practice, narrating life histories and the craft of medicine making, and the moral economies of care. Through sensory ethnography, I highlight the materiality of healing herbs and embodied labor, as well as the ethical and spiritual dimensions of caregiving. A case study of Amchi practice during the COVID-19 pandemic grounds these themes in crisis, revealing how isolation and resilience reshaped healing practices and reaffirmed the significance of local expertise. Across both parts, I weave the notion of being an Amchi as also a calling; a vocation that blurs professional training and spiritual obligation. By situating Amchi medicine within broader anthropological debates on knowledge, craft, and moral labor, this talk aims to illuminate how healing in Spiti is local yet universal, rooted in land, lineages, and life itself.
About the Research Scholars Colloquium: The Research Scholars Colloquium at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ashoka University, is led by our graduate students. It is meant to provide a generative platform for PhD scholars in sociology, anthropology, and other related disciplines and fields to present their research to an encouraging audience of fellow researchers. The Colloquium provides an opportunity for researchers, from India and across the world, to present their work at varying stages of ideation and preparation, to create a space for productive conversations and mutual learning. For the participants/audience, this is a chance to engage with cutting-edge research as it is formulated, explored, and developed by graduate students.
