Curing a Brain Tumor with High Tech Operations and the Help of Spirits: The Appropriation of Biomedicine among the Dayak Benuaq

Abstract

This article analyses the appropriation of biomedicine among the Dayak Benuaq in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Taking the successful curing of a brain tumour as an example, I show how biomedicine is creatively intertwined with indigenous, animist healing practices in order to cure the patient comprehensively. I embed the case study within a broader discussion of modernity and enchantment, which have long been perceived as an opposing pair in western theory, as attributes of modernity like rationalization, secularization and bureaucratization are commonly seen as opposed to animistic connections, magical expectations and spiritual explanations of the world. I argue that the introduction of biomedicine among the Dayak Benuaq does not lead to an abandonment of animistic ideas and indigenous healing practices and as such to a process of disenchantment. Instead, their ability to accept the simultaneous relevance of alternative assumptions about how the world works allows them to combine biomedicine and indigenous medicine in a creative way.

Keywords

• appropriation
• biomedicine
• indigenous medicine
• ritual
• ontology
• Dayak