Exploring Biomedicalization Through Complementary and Alternative Medicine in a Postsocialist Context

ABSTRACT

Drawing on fieldwork in the postsocialist Czech Republic, we explore the transformative processes of biomedicalization, both within and in relation to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). We argue that it would be simplistic to understand evidence of these processes in CAM as a sign that CAM has fallen prey to biomedicine. Instead, we show how particular CAM practices play a groundbreaking role in shaping developments in contemporary health care. In this respect, we question the utility of the concept of biomedicalization, arguing that it reduces the transformative processes to aspects of biomedicine.

KEYWORDS:

• Czech Republic
• biomedicalization
• biomedicine
• complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
• postsocialism
• transformation of health care

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Kateřina Kolářová, Marcela Linková, Kateřina Lišková, and Susanna Trnka for their valuable comments on earlier versions of the article. The authors also appreciate the feedback from the reviewers and editorial guidance, which helped to substantially improve the article. The authors also want to thank Robin Cassling for the careful editing of our English.

Notes

1. Like Clarke and colleagues, here we use the concepts of biomedicine, technoscientific medicine, and mainstream medicine interchangeably to denote medical practice that claims a scientific, evidence-based foundation and forms the core of the medical canon that is taught at universities in Europe and the United States.

2. Zdraví means “Health.” The name of the clinic and the names of the practitioners we worked with have been changed to protect their anonymity.

Additional information

Funding

Work on this article was supported by a grant from the Czech Science Foundation [grant no. 15-16452S].

Notes on contributors

Jaroslav Klepal

Jaroslav Klepal is a researcher in medical anthropology. He received his PhD in Anthropology from Charles University in Prague. His dissertation focused on enactments of posttraumatic stress disorder among war veterans in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Tereza Stöckelová

Tereza Stöckelová is a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and associate professor in the Department of General Anthropology, Charles University. She works in the field of science and technology studies, and draws upon actor network theory and related material semiotic methodologies.