Paper short abstract:

Recent governmental ban on worshipping local deities and removing ancient bricks for treatment of diabetes at Khar Khul Khaan has led to the problem of exclusionary care. The controversy exposes the role of situated human experiences and values in mediating cosmologically ‘dense’ natural landmarks.

Paper long abstract:

While the (re-)construction of traditional medicine in Mongolia over the past three decades has been praised by international organizations and variously supported by members of the Mongolian general public, the surge in diabetes and circulation of Tibetan medical texts detailing its treatment by ingestion of ‘ancient’ brick have led to the destruction of Khar Khul Khaan, an under-researched archaeological site. Recent governmental protection has curbed the removal of bricks and forbid worship of the local spirit owner by the ‘customary’ means of offering milk, white foodstuffs, and scarves, cast as ‘pollution’.

This paper explores the new inequalities that emerge as Khar Khul Khaan – a cosmologically ‘dense’ entity – is converted from medical to historical resource. While both natural heritage conservation and caring for one’s health operate by the biopolitical logics of ‘intervening to keep alive’, the tension between them exposes a hierarchy of values variously enacted by different actors. While nearby residents primarily valued conservation, brick-seeking visitors predominantly considered medical concerns, the twin tendencies to exploit and protect the environment reminiscent of environmental subjectivities during the Soviet period (Bruno 2019).

For interlocutors, the controversy was not that the mandate denied existence of the spirit owner, but instead a politico-ethical concern: who is allowed to care for whom or what, and in what ways. In this case study, cosmology as ‘principles of order that support integrated forms of being’ (Schrempp 1992: ix-x) emerges not as immaterial backdrop ‘out there’, but as mediated by situated human experiences, values and practices.