In this study the author analyzes the relationship between the individual
body and the body politic in a region of the north Indian state of
Uttarakhand, in connection with social changes occurring at the local and
trans-local level, which are impacting the status of the different healing
systems. By investigating these issues, this paper aims to shed light on some
of the complex ways in which practitioners and patients who take part in a
local method of healing, in this case ritual healing through possession,
respond to the expansion of biomedicine.