A Diagnosis for Our Times: Alternative Health's Submerged Networks and the Transformation of Identities

Abstract

This paper explores two submerged networks in the Pittsburgh area alternative health movement through the use of thirty two intensive interviews and ethnographic research. Utilizing Jürgen Habermas's colonization theory as well as Alberto Melucci's emphasis on the process of collective identity formation, the paper describes a “conservative Christian” and a culturally progressive network demonstrating how these networks differ and what they have in common. The paper examines how new oppositional identities and meanings emerge from face to face interactions between alternative practitioners, patients and activists in a variety of settings. Overall, the paper argues that resistance to the “medical industrial complex,” one leading instrument of “colonization,” is coming from the Christian right as well as elements of the cultural left.