Detraditionalisation, gender and alternative and complementary medicines

Sointu, Eeva

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2010.01275.x

Cited by 41 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Everyday forms of lay (medical) activism are closely tied to a context of more market-orientated forms of healthcare delivery inherent to CAM consumption (Goldner, 2004) -a type of approach to health and illness which, moreover, strongly promotes individualism and autonomy through its discourses (Sointu, 2011;Sointu and Woodhead, 2008). In divesting the role of constructing efficacy to the individual (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Networks of knowledge or just old wives’ tales?: A diary-based analysis of women’s self-care practices and everyday lay expertise

2013

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Complementary and alternative medicine is increasingly popular in Australia and particularly among women. While existing research provides some understanding of women's engagement with complementary and alternative medicine and biomedicine, there has been comparatively little examination of the day-to-day character of their experiences. In this study, we utilise solicited diaries with women aged 60-65 years drawn from the 1946-1951 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health to capture the temporal dimension of their therapeutic engagement. Focusing on 30 active complementary and alternative medicine users, we explore women's experiences of managing their health, illness and well-being over a 1-month period. The themes that emerge from their diaries illustrate the day-to-day enactment of lay expertise through informal knowledge networks, practices of self-trialling and experimentation and the moralities underpinning self-care. The diaries provide unprecedented temporal insight into the (often problematic) enactment of lay expertise at the nexus of complementary and alternative medicine and biomedicine. They also point to the value of longitudinal techniques of data collection for augmenting more traditional sociological ways of exploring therapeutic pluralism.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Networks of knowledge or just old wives’ tales?: A diary-based analysis of women’s self-care practices and everyday lay expertise

2013

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“…In this way, both nature and tradition implicitly or explicitly hold connotations of gentleness, goodness and safety as essential characteristics of herbal medicines and/or treatment (Williams' meaning 1). These associations, by tapping into notions of femininity and purportedly 'feminine' qualities, make 'natural' healthcare approaches particularly attractive to women (Sointu 2011). Further, caring for oneself 'naturally' (e.g.…”

Section: Western Herbal Medicine In the Ukmentioning

confidence: 98%

Naturalness as an ethical stance: idea(l)s and practices of care in western herbal medicine in the UK

Nissen

2015

Anthropology & Medicine

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An association of non-biomedical healthcare with appeals to nature and naturalness, and an invocation of a rhetoric of gentleness, goodness, purity and moral power has been noted previously, and some scholars argue that nature has taken on a meaning broadly opposed to the rational scientific order of modernity. Drawing on an ethnographic study of women's practice and use of western herbal medicine (WHM) in the UK, the intertwining of the perceived naturalness of WHM with distinct care practices points to a further avenue for exploration. To examine patients' and herbalists' discourses of the naturalness of WHM and associated idea(l)s and practices of care, understandings of nature and a feminist ethics of care are utilized as analytical frameworks. The analysis presented suggests that, through WHM, patients and herbalists become embedded in a complex spatio-temporal wholeness and web of care that intertwines past, present and future, self and others, and local and global concerns. In the emerging 'ordinary ethics of care', naturalness constitutes a sign of goodness and of a shared humanity within the organic world, while care, underpinned by idea(l)s of natural and holistic care practices, links human and non-human others. Thus, the naturalness of WHM, as perceived by some patients and herbalists, engages and blends with a continually unfolding field of relationships in the lifeworld(s), where care practices, caring relations and collective wellbeing may constitute an ethical stance that raises deeper questions about the significance of relationality, the values of care/caring and the mutual involvement of nature and human being(s).

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“…That is, cancer CANCER SELF-HEALTH PROGRAMMES 8 self-health can be understood as an approach emerging from a field of healthcare that emphasises practices of self-improvement and self-modification, based on the values of autonomy, individuality, responsibility, choice, and freedom in healthcare (Bauman 2007;Foucault 1973;Giddens 1991;Rose 1999). Accordingly, the values and discourses that pose as an alternative to the mainstream biomedical values, might be found to contain cultural artefacts that constrained their emancipatory promise (Philip 2009;Sointu 2011;Stacey 1997).…”

Section: An Emerging Ethos Of Self-healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cancer self-health programmes: an ethos for negotiating multiplicities of healthcare

MacArtney

2015

Health Sociology Review

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Cancer self-health programmes are a popular form of healthcare in the UK, Australia and North America. This article explores how they bring together heterogeneous and possibly incommensurable modes of healthcare (including complementary and alternative medicine, self-help, psychotherapy, and systems theory from bioscience) to form programmes of self-health. Through a discourse analysis of four programmes -The Bristol Approach; Health Creation Programme; CANCERactive; and, The Healing Journey -this article explore how these programmes promote: (1) Strategies to delineate spheres of living, such as mind, body, and spirit; (2) Relational practices such as, holism, connectedness, listening, and healing; (3) Empirically pragmatic attitudes that individualise techniques and practices; and, (4) Purposes to life that emphasise a dialogical movement between dichotomised positions. Significantly, through these strategies, techniques and practices cancer self-health programmes are able to promote an ethos that seeks to affect the user, without determining an individual's specific needs or choices.Keywords Complementary and alternative medicine, self-help, psychotherapy, cancer, systems biomedicine, sociology. within) could be tempered by the ethical difference these programmes make to the ways users understand their healthcare. In order to consider this, this article explores how the strategies, techniques, practices and aims of cancer self-health programmes are proffered to the user as one way of managing the multiplicity of tensions in selfhealthcare. MethodThe following four cancer self-health programmes 1 were selected for analysis  Chris Woollams' 'CANCERactive' (Woollams 2005(Woollams , 2008.1 While the founders or users of these programmes may not specifically use the label 'cancer self-health', I do not believe the conceptualisation would be one either alien to them or construed as necessarily problematic.2 Cooke wrote most of the book on The Bristol Approach, however it introduces an approach inspired by Penny Brohn and Pat Pilkington (the founders) (PBCC 2013) and that was the product of years of collaboration from numerous CAM and biomedical practitioners at the Bristol center. The books that were selected from each programme represent the core texts for each approach, introducing the main ideas, attitudes and practices to the (potential) user.The programmes themselves extend much further than these books, offering websites, newsletters, blogs, DVDs and podcasts, as well as courses and retreats. However, in order to focus on the central messages of the programmes these were excluded from this analysis.The field of cancer self-health is an international and multi-million dollar enterprise and so other programmes were considered for analysis. unlike the other four programmes, which seek to bring together a heterogeneous mix of treatments, therapies and practices, these approaches emphasise one discipline to the exclusion of others. LeShan and Hay primarily focus on the psychological aspects of illness,...

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Detraditionalisation, gender and alternative and complementary medicines

Cited by 41 publications

References 23 publications

Networks of knowledge or just old wives’ tales?: A diary-based analysis of women’s self-care practices and everyday lay expertise

Networks of knowledge or just old wives’ tales?: A diary-based analysis of women’s self-care practices and everyday lay expertise

Naturalness as an ethical stance: idea(l)s and practices of care in western herbal medicine in the UK

Cancer self-health programmes: an ethos for negotiating multiplicities of healthcare

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