5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

What is typically referred to as ‘complementary and alternative medicine’ (CAM) is becoming increasingly popular across the globe, including in the form of traditional indigenous medicine as supported by the World Health Organization. However, although there are some notable exceptions, its exponents are often marginalised by the state through punitive exclusionary measures compared to biomedical practices. As such, CAM is frequently subject to anything from voluntary rather than statutory regulation to more oppressive systems of heretical control – with all the consequences for the standing of its practitioners and access by clients. This regular session asks whether this is because of its arguably weaker, less scientific and often incommensurable knowledge base compared to that of orthodox biomedicine or more invidious factors such as the exercise of medical power and interests. This raises the question as to whether integrated healthcare will ever be truly possible in terms of the interplay of practitioners and their organisations on both the unorthodox and orthodox sides of the divide. Papers in this session are welcome addressing these issues from a historical and/or contemporary perspective – as well as examining how far the integration of such therapies may be facilitated to public benefit in future by policy change, further research and greater rapprochement between the parties concerned. Papers should be centred on a single society or clusters of societies and focused specifically or generically in terms of the therapeutic approaches considered.