Diffractions of Traditional Herbal Medicines in Thailand: Reading for Greater Difference in the Diverse Economies Debate

Abstract

The paper introduces diffractive reading to economic geographic thinking and suggests to add a further understanding of what diversity can mean in the debate about diverse economic practices and their geographies. Drawing on field work in Thailand the paper shows how free trade policies and protection of traditional knowledge and biological diversity acts have reconfigured traditional herbal medicine heavily in recent years. These regimes do not simply work differently - one as opposed to the other - but diffractively. That means both regimes coevolve in interaction. Diffractive reading helps to understand how capitalistic and non-capitalistic practices co-constitute in transnational and relational geographies and allows to read for greater difference in the diverse economies debate.