The International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine (IASTAM) meets every three years for an International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine (ICTAM). Founded in 1979, IASTAM is the only international organisation in the field of Asian medicine making a serious attempt to embrace both academics and practitioners. It holds regional and international conferences (e.g. in Canberra in 1979, Surabaya in 1984, Bombay in 1990, Tokyo in 1994 and in Austin in 2006), publishes a regular newsletter, and produces the only peer reviewed academic journal in the field, Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, published with Brill in Leiden.

 

The 2009 gathering of IASTAM, the Seventh Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine (ICTAM VII) was held in Thimphu, Bhutan, from September 7-11, 2009, hosted by the Institute for Traditional Medicine Services (ITMS), Royal Government of Bhutan.

The theme for the congress, ‘Asian Medicine: Cultivating Traditions and the Challenges of Globalization’, was positively received by both Bhutanese hosts and national and international participants enabling a wide variety of topics and issues being discussed. The congress brought about unique communications between scholars, scientists, policymakers and practitioner. We witnessed a growth in the range of topics and methodological approaches in the conferences’ schedule, from history, philology and religion to literature, Asian medical and biomedical practices and sciences, and from anthropology, art history, material culture, law to globalisation, gender studies and modernity.

With 200 participants in attendance, including practitioners and academics as well as private entrepreneurs and government civil servants from 30 countries, IASTAM as an organisation remains true to its ethos of being both international and interdisciplinary at its heart, as conceived of 30 years ago by Charles Leslie and A. L. Basham, the founders of IASTAM.

A preliminary collection of podcasts from the conference is available here, and more podcasts and videos are planned for the near future.

Feel free to download the full programme and all abstracts of the conference here: Programme & Abstract Booklet.