Drugs’ Life: Accessibility and Use of Biomedical Drugs in Myanmar

Abstract

Based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Rakhine State (Western Myanmar), this article aims to define the local accessibility of biomedical drugs and the use people make of them. Following the ‘biographical’ approach developed by Van der Geest and his colleagues (1989, 1996, 2002), the article shows how the appropriation by local people of biomedical drugs is very much determined by the social, cultural and economic reality in which people live, their personal biographies, their past experiences, as well as the relation they have with the medicines deliverers and the degree of trust, familiarity, socio-cultural affinity and geographical proximity characterizing relations. This analysis intends to fill a gap in the anthropological literature on contemporary Myanmar where the topic of biomedical drugs remains largely unexplored.