Abstract
In this paper, I discuss the practice of Ayurveda in the Czech Republic. Building upon ethnographic data acquired during participant observations and semi-structured interviews with Ayurveda students I examine and question non-curative effects of Ayurveda practice.
I argue that Ayurveda changes self-understanding and everyday life of people who practice it. Moreover, these changes may persist even after the health issue disappear.
Following the practitioners' reflections on how Ayurveda has influenced their life, I look at new ways of perceiving, experiencing and handling their bodies. It has been argued that the practice of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) brings both, bodily awareness and bodily mastery to people, which are perceived as beneficial (Baarts and Pedersen 2009).
I explore how different ways of bodily awareness emerge through recognizing interconnections among different parts of the body (formerly perceived as quite independent) as well as among body and its surrounding socio-natural environment. I discuss how the newly emerged interconnections give an agency to formerly passive objects.
More importantly I explore, how this holism of Ayurveda, this approach to body as a complex body-mind system, as a part of a wider socio-natural environment, affects the everyday practice of the people who attempt to live according to it. What kind of dilemmas do these new ways of enacting body produce? How the experience of the body which is strongly dependent dis/enable self-control?