Ayurveda Tourism and Masculinity in Contemporary Kerala

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the self-projection of Kerala through Ayurveda tourism and what this is doing to concepts of masculinity and femininity. The author focuses on actual female and male bodies as producers and consumers of Ayurveda tourism, arguing that the rigidity of what constitutes femininity and masculinity is not questioned, but who possesses it is interchanged. This in turn exposes the constructedness of the binary opposition between femininity and masculinity as there exist multiple combinations of masculinity and femininity at any given time and space. The author also touches upon debates around modernity and tradition in Ayurveda tourism. She argues that the dominant ideas of men as active, and women as passive, are shaped by the discourse of upper caste Hindus and colonial modernity. Ayurveda tourism, in reinventing both tradition and modernity, has changed its form and function. This has led to two main changes: (a) it has become a sphere of the rich, by the rich and for the rich; and (b) it has undergone a process of homogenization and standardization. She also engages with the nature of Ayurveda itself in the paper. The author proposes that the dominance of Allopathy over submissive Ayurveda is symbolic of the authority of husband over wife in a patriarchal society. This paper is based on interactions with Ayurveda practitioners in Kerala. Other sources include interviews with students of tourism courses, politicians, and officials in the Department of Tourism. With a view to study the projection of Ayurveda tourism by the state, the author looks at the Kerala Tourism Development Council’s brochures and statistics. Through all of these, she raises political questions in the field of Ayurveda, trying to redefine the political and re-looking at interactions of plural femininity and masculinity. The popularity of Ayurveda tourism in recent times clearly demonstrates that knowledge means control, and control power.