Medicine Multiple: Ethnography of the interfaces between biomedical and alternative therapeutic practices

The project is concerned with the integrations of, and conflicts and passages between biomedicine and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Drawing upon medical anthropology, science and technology studies and the sociology of medicine, we propose to carry out a multi-sited ethnographic research in the Czech Republic which will, first, contribute to these three fields of study with original theoretical insights and methodological strategies regarding disease, health and body, and second, enhance the understanding of the specificities of CAM treatments and their interfaces with biomedicine in the contemporary Czech society. Distinctive features of the project include the focus on 1) interfaces between biomedicine and CAM but also between different CAM approaches and practices; 2) heterogeneous materialities and technologies as agents in the therapeutic practices; 3) technologies of the self, emerging socialities, and biosocial differentiation and transformation taking place also beyond the medical/therapeutic settings in a strict sense.