Discourses of Care and Alternative Medical Choices

It is increasingly becoming an important healthcare option that complementary and alternative medicine for Chinese older adults. Through field study of CAM, the paper identifies a unique view of physical-health of olders and a discourses of love and care of CAM workers, how shape a particular medical-emotional-consumption field. This multi-practice become an important reason for older people who choose CAM.This paper describes the interactions and care-shaping processes between diverse populations in the unique space created by the field of CAM, which present a complexity of the emotional, monetary, reciprocal, and caregiving behavior that entangled in network of relationship.

This study firstly explains why older people become 'addicted' to CAM, which play a role in their minds, and it involves a particular medical-bodily-emotional practices. Secondly, the paper try to deepen studies that a process of emotion and commodification of CAM consumption.It able to expand on the more complex aspects of 'caring' that emerged from the process of marketization in China. Finally, the paper will draw on older people's narratives to discuss the absence of the family and the state in different forms of gerontological care, both of which have worked together to push older people into the world of CAM in the midst of complex social transformations.