Paper short abstract:

This paper critically explores the expansion of India's healthcare interventions in Africa with regard to Ayurvedic medicines in Tanzania, as they are framed in the context of an "Indo-Africa renaissance" and "South-South" development cooperation.

Paper long abstract:

Driven by long-standing ties with India, and closely intertwined with global market interests, a dynamic nexus of medical supply is currently found in Tanzania. To compete at a global level - and framed within the language of "South-South development cooperation for mutual benefit" (Modi 2011) - India appears as the "genuine" exporter of medical products suitable for African clientele. India is thus transforming healthcare practices, with the aim of improving the lives of potential patients (Duclos 2014). The expansion of India's medical sector into Africa is particularly relevant for Indian-manufactured Ayurvedic pharmaceuticals. Mass-produced for a cosmopolitan clientele, these new 'traditional drugs' have become an important element in the global governance of health (Gaudillière and Pordié 2014).

By taking the flow of Ayurvedic medicines to Tanzania as a case study, this paper aims to contribute to the understanding of medical practices as they are configured by the dynamics of global mobility. It explores to what extent the industrialization of Ayurveda occupies a "strategic position" in Indo-African discursive practices and the creation of new market opportunities for India. Moreover, it interrogates to what extent new "South-South" cooperations between Indian and Tanzanian agents give rise to relations of power 
(e.g., for the Indian government by rehabilitating "local health traditions", for traders by reinventing Ayurvedic remedies as a form of "alternative modernity", for the Ayurveda industry by stabilizing new drug formulas for global acceptance, for the Tanzanian government by formalizing Ayurveda within the framework of "professionalization" covered by national policies).