Paper short abstract:

Local actors encounter two evidence discourses in global health: the ranking of cultural commodities according to "terroir", and various yet common languages of science. This paper introduces collectors of Chinese medicinal substances, and how scientific data is collected about the same substances.

Paper long abstract:

The global discourse about healthy Chinese medicine-pharmaceuticals falls into at least two distinct domains: the ranking of cultural commodities according to "terroir", and various yet common languages of science. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in China, and - from a science studies-vantage point - it investigates various data collectors in the contested yet multifarious field of Chinese pharma-medicine.

Lena Springer introduces collectors of Chinese medicinal substances in contemporary China, such as wildcrafters or highly specialised "pharma-workers", on the one hand. On the other hand, she demonstrates how scientific data is collected about the same substances. In some outstanding cases, the different kinds of collectors do collaborate closely: both locally and in global science. Thus she compares the two evidence discourses in global health and gives examples of how local actors encounter terroir and data, and shape them together.