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

Abstract

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.

Assessing the place of neurobiological explanations in accounts of a family member's addiction

“…Fifteen interviewees were recruited through FDS to achieve a balance in sex of the interviewee, the sex of the addicted relative and their primary drug of abuse. The initial interview schedule was developed from questions used in the previous interviews carried out with members of the Australian public [9,23] and with addiction clinicians and neuroscientists [8,13]. It was also informed by the results of interviews with smokers and persons who had been treated for addiction.…”

“…The views of families are also interesting from the point of view of understanding how personal experience shapes knowledge about addiction, including the acceptance, or rejection, of scientific ideas. Personal experience may contribute to how individuals conceptualise addiction [22] and such information may be shared through social (support) networks [23].…”

Adoptivfamiljers återresor till barnens födelseländer

“…Dagböckerna verkar till exempel ha tillhandahållit ett sätt för dagboksskrivare att ventilera allt från lustfyllda upplevelser till frustrationer och känslomässiga upp-och nedgångar (cf. Broom, Meurk, Adams & Sibbritt, 2014;Meth, 2003). Samtidigt var resedagböckerna en möjlighet för dagboksskrivarna att beskriva händelser och emotioner i sin sociala kontext (Meth, 2003) under själva adoptionsåterresorna och att dryfta tankar som värdesattes för stunden (Broom et al, 2014).…”

The role of health locus of control in value co-creation for standardized screening services

“…Well I can't get a result if I'm not compliant with them, it's just never going to get done. The sense of onerous responsibility in health decision-making (Broom et. al., 2014) is evidenced when participants note how it comes as a relief to "do as I'm told", for example: While the participants identified relinquishing control as a value-creating activity it was not considered to be risky.…”