Alternative healthcare modalities can no longer be construed as oppositional to biomedicine. Numerous studies have shown that people in different sociocultural contexts adopt a pluralistic approach to their health problems. Individuals tackling health issues enlist the help of conventional medicine in conjunction with alternative medicine for physical and mental well-being. This integrative approach to health issues is especially notable in the domain of female reproductive health. The fourteen chapters of Complementary, Alternative, and Traditional Medicine: Prospects and Challenges for Women’s Reproductive Health, edited by Contanza Torri and Jennie M. Hornosty, elucidate the utilization of traditional medicine and complementary/alternative medicine by women to solve female health issues.
The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 includes chapters that discuss key issues and fundamental concepts of traditional medicine (TM) and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Women’s roles as healers and practitioners of TM are also examined in these introductory chapters, which concur that the art of healing is not an intrinsically male profession because women have played and continue to play active roles in this presumably male domain. Part 2 presents cases in which women in the Global South, namely South America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, use TM to enhance or solve problems pertaining to their reproductive health. The six chapters in Part 2 maintain that, since TM is embedded in indigenous worldview, the healing approaches it espouses agree with cultural values and expectations of female clients who perceive reproductive health issues through a cultural lens. TM appeals to women in the Global South because of its congruence with cultural meanings attributed to female sexuality and reproductivity. The five chapters that constitute Part 3 of the book explore the use of CAM among women in the Global North. Unlike TM in the Global South, women’s utilization of CAM in the Global North reflects a desire to exercise greater agency over one’s well-being, and a neoliberal outlook on healthcare that values the individual’s decision over passive compliance with health professionals. Given that female reproductive health first and foremost concerns women, CAM provides alternative platforms where women can make their own choices unrestricted by male physicians who do not and cannot share similar bodily experiences.
All chapters in this volume make notable contributions to medical anthropology and gender studies. Presenting cases in which women’s health decisions are influenced by gender norms, cultural values, and their biological sex, the collection illustrates how medical anthropology and women’s studies can be merged in integrative research that illuminates the gendered aspects of health and illness. The collection not only delineates the factors that shape women’s healthcare behaviors in diverse sociocultural contexts, but also emphasizes the interdependence and interplay between them, implying that a holistic view of these factors and the distinct context they are embedded in is crucial to an understanding of women’s utilization of TM and CAM when tackling gender-related health issues.
TM and CAM as defined by the studies in this volume are contextually dependent concepts extrapolated from ethnographic cases rather than static analytical constructs. While TM is roughly defined as healing practices and tenets embedded in the traditional worldview of a specific cultural group, it can also be construed as CAM when adopted by health professionals and people outside that particular group in parallel with biomedicine. The studies in this volume elucidate contextually variable definitions of TM and CAM through diverse cases of women using alternative medicine in different sociocultural environments. Likewise, the relations between TM/CAM and biomedicine illustrated by these cases vary, showing that the former are not invariably perceived as inferior or illegitimate vis-à-vis the latter. In some cases, the popularity of TM or CAM results in its appropriation by modern healthcare providers who promote them as traditional wisdom. In other cases, holistic approaches to health and illness espoused by TM and CAM are considered preferable to biomedicine, which reduces the human body to a totality of functioning organs.
All chapters include a brief summary of learning objectives, a glossary, and a section presenting critical thinking questions. These paratexts render the collection very accessible to readers who are not familiar with the subject matter of the book. In addition, text boxes within each chapter provide noteworthy facts and information that help elucidate the issue discussed. Apparently, the book was structured to suit readers of diverse trainings and fields of expertise, given its apposite use of paratexts.
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[Review length: 725 words • Review posted on June 28, 2018]