Money, commodification and complementary health care: Theorising personalised medicine within depersonalised systems of exchange

McClean, Stuart; Moore, Ronnie

Abstract

Across the United Kingdom and other Western nations, complementary health care has become big business, with pressure to commercialise and technologise its goods and services. Economic liberalisation and the democratisation of health care have encouraged the increased commodification of complementary health services. This article focuses particularly on more personalised forms of complementary health care, such as folk healing, but equally highlights the importance of a whole health-care systems analysis when thinking about commodification and marketisation. We develop an exploratory synthesis of recent empirical data in the United Kingdom, in which we theorise the significance of money for complementary healthcare and folk healing. Four mutual themes and questions emerge and are presented here, with a discussion of their contribution to wider theoretical debates about money, the community, and social and health-care systems. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Citation

McClean, S., & Moore, R. (2013). Money, commodification and complementary health care: Theorising personalised medicine within depersonalised systems of exchange. Social Theory and Health, 11(2), 194-214. https://doi.org/10.1057/sth.2012.16

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: May 1, 2013
• Journal: Social Theory and Health
• Print ISSN: 1477-8211
• Electronic ISSN: 1477-822X
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (part of Springer Nature)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 194-214
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sth.2012.16
• Keywords: money, commodification, gift, complementary health, folk healing, qualitative research
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/932445
• Publisher URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/sth/index.html