Instituting Traditional Medicine: changes to identity and legitimacy in global health

Based on reports from the World Health Organization, this ethnography concerns the concept of tradition/traditional as a quality of contemporary medicine. The discussion focuses on the way in which this term has been mobilized within the context of global health and, not least, on its effects while being instituted as a therapeutic category. From a medical anthropology approach, I track the mobilization of this concept from the 1960s to current reports, through the Organization’s headquarters to its regional branches. I intend to highlight the shifts in its conceptualization, specifically, how the term has reshaped the identity and legitimacy of medicine and medication.