Ephemeral Equality, Durable Hierarchy: State Redrawing of Medical Boundaries in Mao’s China (1954-1976)

• In Event: 40420 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8: Power and Politics

Abstract

This research examines how the state affects power dynamics within the medical field. From 1954 to 1976, the Chinese state implemented the Medical Integration Policy, with a political vision of building a "Socialist New Medical School" by integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with Western Medicine (WM). However, why did the state succeed in integrating TCM into the medical system, yet TCM practitioners' status remained humble? Methodologically, my research draws on archival materials, media reports, and secondary literature, utilizing the technique of process tracing. I adopt Bourdieu’s conceptions of field and capital to study the dynamics between the professional and political fields. I argue that under the state’s strategic vision of constructing a Socialist New Medical School, “mass capital” was collectively constructed due to its alignment with both the socialist state’s cultural vision of “mass routes” within the political field and the technical vision of efficacy shared by both TCM and WM. However, due to differences in prior habitus—where TCM practitioners were generally less educated and their knowledge remained embodied, personal, and uninstitutionalized, while WM practitioners were highly educated, closely connected with the prior regime’s modernization blueprint, and institutionalized—the state, despite emphasizing TCM practitioners at the discourse level, consistently centered WM practitioners in policy implementation. This research highlights the unintended consequences of boundary imposition (nominal reclassification), as well as the decoupling between symbolic and social boundaries.

Author

• Jinyang Lyu, University of California-San Diego