Over recent decades, accelerating industrialization, commodification, and market expansion has transformed “traditional Asian medicines” into large, innovative, and lucrative industries with significant influence both within and beyond their countries of origin. Encompassing firms engaged in the production of classical and reformulated medicines and the “wellness” sector, whose commodities are not strictly medical yet invoke Asian medical knowledge, these industries both capitalize on and transcend the labels “traditional”, “Asian”, and “medicine.” As formerly localized institutions and producers become increasingly national and transnational in scope, they are engaging in new ways with social, political, economic, ecological, technological and regulatory fields, transforming themselves, and Asia more broadly, in the process.

Multiple logics, knowledge forms and agendas intersect as “traditional medicines” are reformulated, invented, sourced, mass-produced, assessed, and circulated in distinctly modern ways, and as wellness industries coopt traditional knowledge to expand into global markets for food and beverages, cosmetics, infant care, and household goods. This opens new frontiers of engagement linking contemporary healthcare practices, socio-economic transformations, (geo)political trends, and environmental dynamics both within Asia and worldwide.

Despite the size and significance of these developments, scholarship focusing on the innovative, integrative and transformative dimensions of Asian medical industries remains remarkably scarce. Several recent publications have begun tracing out these aspects within India, but almost nothing is available concerning the vast industries based in China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, let alone those emerging elsewhere in Asia. We therefore know little about these industries in their own right and even less about how they interact with one another, or how they are shaped by (and shape) national-level policies and global regulatory systems and market dynamics.

By gathering original research from a range of perspectives, this Research Topic will examine Asian medical industries as an empirical phenomenon at the same time as critically reappraising “traditional Asian medicine” as an analytical category. We aim to establish why and how particular industrial assemblages are moving beyond tradition, Asia and medicine in terms of their scope and activities, while developing conceptual tools that will facilitate more nuanced understandings of these sectors in future.

We seek both focused case studies and larger comparative analyses which shed light on the transformation of Asian health traditions into medical industries, or on the emergence of the associated wellness sector. Among other potential topics, contributions might focus on one or more of the following:

• Reformulation regimes and practices within Asian medical industries
• National-level agendas, policies and programs concerning traditional medicines
• Regulatory regimes for herb-based pharmaceuticals and wellness products at national, regional and global scales
• Ecological implications of industrial expansion (trade, cultivation and conservation of raw materials)
• Investment patterns and corporate dynamics within these industries (competition, collaboration, profits, mergers etc.)
• Specific products or product lines that transcend familiar categories (e.g. wellness products, nutraceuticals and food supplements)
• Market dynamics and marketing techniques for various product types
• Technological innovations (e.g., herbal extracts, new pharmaceutical forms, packaging)
• Pharmacological research (e.g., drug discovery; efficacy and safety; standardization).

We are open to studies based in specific Social Science and Humanities disciplines (e.g., anthropology, sociology, history), as well as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary contributions. Although primarily concerned with developments taking place within Asia, we are also interested in the role global regulatory frameworks and markets play in shaping them.

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Frontiers in Human Dynamics

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