Linking Small-Scale Commercial Activities and Women's Health: The Jamu System in Urban Areas of Java, Indonesia

摘要

Traditional medicine practices are widely documented and analyzed in Asia. Despite this, the interlinkages existing between small-scale commercial activities based on ethnomedicine and local health have been ignored. This paper attempts to overcome this shortcoming by analyzing the possible synergies existing between small-scale commercial activities centered on traditional herbal medicine in Indonesia (jamu) and health. The paper shows how the existence of these links in the city of Yogyakarta, Java, could represent a valuable basis to increment primary health care and enhance local livelihoods of rural women through commercial activities in the herbal sector.