Paper short abstract

This study focuses on a figure: the Registered Medical Practitioner, a type of community health human resource, who occupies a niche in the medical market-place as an informal exponent of quasi-biomedical treatment in India. We challenge the overdrawn dichotomy of formal and informal health sector.

Paper long abstract

Papreen Nahar, 1 Sitamma Mikkilineni,2 NandakishoreKannuri,2

GVS Murthy,2 Peter Phillimore1

This analysis challenges the tendency to associate India's medical pluralism with a distinction between biomedicine, as a homogeneous entity, and its non-biomedical 'others'. We argue that this overdrawn dichotomy obscures the important part played by 'informal' biomedical practice. Based on a qualitative study in rural Andhra Pradesh, South India, and drawing on Sarah Pinto and Ananya Roy on 'informality', we focus on a figure little discussed in the academic literature: the Registered Medical Practitioner (RMP), a type of community health human resource, who occupies a niche in the medical market-place as an informal exponent of quasi-biomedical treatment. The RMP, who despite the title is rarely registered, sheds revealing light on the formal-informal sector divide in India's healthcare system.