Do not resist, show me your body!': Encounters between the Jarwas of the Andamans and Medicine (1858-2004)

Abstract

Based on fieldwork and archival studies carried out since 1995, this paper is an analysis of the dialogue between the Jarwas and the outside world. The Jarwa tribal community on the Andaman Islands has a long history of voluntary isolation and pronounced hostility towards outsiders. This situation only started to change in the mid-1990s, when a young Jarwa was successfully treated at a local hospital. The Jarwas� sudden fascination with modern medicine was less to do with its therapeutic powers than the fact that, on each visit, hospital staff gave them food, clothes, and various consumer items. This paper describes events in the Jarwas� �junket to modernity�. Before discussing recent events, the paper first retraces the history of relations between the Jarwas and the outside world during the second half of the 19th century, when life on the Andaman Islands was dominated by a British Penal Settlement. In the face of epidemic outbreaks of pneumonia, malaria, and measles, tribal health has become a major concern for the Indian authorities. The paper discusses continuities and discontinuities in medical concerns with the tribal body, and argues that �marginalization� must be understood as a practice of mutual constitution.