Chinese Migrants and Their Medicine in France (1976-2015) : Circulation of Knowledge in a Globalizad World

This communication aims to analyse the development of Chinese medicine in French society, in connection with Chinese immigration in France during the period 1976-2015. Several stakeholders are involved in this developement. At local scale, actors are CAM users, practitioners and public authorities in various fields of the French society. At global scale, actors are the Chinese state with his multiple interests, supra-state organizations and other players in global healthcare services market.

The communication mobilizes a number of qualitative methods (consultation of archives, ethnography, interviews, observations) and adopts a socio-historical approach. The fieldwork is done in Beijing and in Paris, in hospitals and paramedical fields. This communication is structured around two main research axes : 1) The social conditions, either cultural, economic and political, making the TCM’s transnational circulation possible ; 2) The processus of reinterpretation – from the “top” and from the “bottom” – of TCM in France.