Balancing act: Women and the study of complementary and alternative medicine

Flesch, Hannah

doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2009.06.011

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…For most of the twentieth century, the studies of medical pluralism contained only scattered references to women-for example, as primary users of alternative medicine or as traditional healers. Today, there is a growing body of literature that critically addresses gender and gender ideologies in the context of medical pluralism (Cameron 2010;Fjeld & Hofer 2011;Flesch 2010;Menjívar 2002;Schrempf 2011;Selby 2005;Zhang 2007). A related area of scholarship is focused on reproduction, traditional birth attendants, and the issues of gender equity in pluralistic medical settings, particularly within the institutions of intercultural medicine in Latin America.…”

Section: Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical Pluralism

Khalikova¹

2021

CEA

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Section: Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical Pluralism

Khalikova¹

2021

CEA

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“…Some authors (Brenton and Elliott 2014; Flesch 2007, 2010; Scott 1998) have made an association between CAM and feminist campaigns, seeing the former as an alternative space to develop gender-sensitive health care. Certainly, whilst the majority of users are women (Adams et al 2003; Bishop et al 2010; Harris et al 2012), it must be remembered that women are also the primary consumers of conventional medicine, and its use by males is not insignificant (Cant and Watts 2019).…”

Section: A ‘New’ Medical Pluralism: Cam and Mainstream Marginalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical Pluralism, Mainstream Marginality or Subaltern Therapeutics? Globalisation and the Integration of ‘Asian’ Medicines and Biomedicine in the UK

Cant

2020

Society and Culture in South Asia

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Medical Pluralism refers to the coexistence of differing medical traditions and practices grounded in divergent epistemological positions and based on distinctive worldviews. From the 1970s, a globalised health market, underpinned by new consumer and practitioner interest, spawned the importation of ‘non-Western’ therapeutics to the UK. Since then, these various modalities have coexisted alongside, and sometimes within, biomedical clinics. Sociologists have charted the emergence of this ‘new’ medical pluralism in the UK, to establish how complementary and alternative medicines have fared in both the private and public health sectors and to consider explanations for the attraction of these modalities. The current positioning of complementary and alternative medicines can be described as one of ‘mainstream marginality’ ( Cant 2009 , The New Sociology of the Health Service, London: Routledge): popular with users, but garnering little statutory support. Much sociological analysis has explained this marginal positioning of non-orthodox medicine by recourse to theories of professionalisation and has shown how biomedicine has been able, with the support of the state, to subordinate, co-opt and limit its competitors. Whilst insightful, this work has largely neglected to situate medical pluralism in its historical, global and colonial contexts. By drawing on post-colonial thinking, the paper suggests how we might differently theorise and research the appropriation, alteration and reimagining of ‘Asian’ therapeutic knowledges in the UK.

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“…Ideas of balance have a history of being used to position CAM as offering users something either from outside of biomedicine or that biomedicine had neglected (Saks, 2003). Hence, the idea that CAM offers something to balance out what is lacking extends beyond concerns with the sick body, to finding ways to better manage personal and professional obligations (Flesch, 2010), and address concerns about wellbeing (Sointu, 2006a). Balance is therefore often understood as a practice through which numerous oppositions found in healthcare – such as between the mind and body, hope and fate, empowerment and disenfranchisement – are negotiated (Daykin et al, 2007; Wagman et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing exercises: Subjectivised narratives of balance in cancer self-health

MacArtney

2015

Health (London)

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Having a 'balanced lifestyle' is often promoted as one way to manage the competing demands of contemporary life. For people with cancer, those demands are often multiplied, particularly when they use self-health approaches that seek to bring together an array of biomedical and complementary and alternative medicine therapies and practices. Yet, how balance is used in this complex healthcare milieu and the affects it has on experiences of illness are less well understood. In order to follow the polyphonic narratives involved, two case studies of women with breast cancer who used cancer self-health approaches were analysed. By exploring different modes of subjectivation in the case studies, balance was found to affect experiences of health in contemporary society in multiple ways. In particular, it was one way through which participants saw themselves as being able to maintain a critical engagement not just with their healthcare, but with their self and life.

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Balancing act: Women and the study of complementary and alternative medicine

Cited by 10 publications

References 25 publications

Medical Pluralism

Medical Pluralism

Medical Pluralism, Mainstream Marginality or Subaltern Therapeutics? Globalisation and the Integration of ‘Asian’ Medicines and Biomedicine in the UK

Balancing exercises: Subjectivised narratives of balance in cancer self-health

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