A Diagnosis for Our Times: Alternative Health from Lifeworld to Politics (review)

Schneirov and Geczik view alternative health as a significant force for overall social and cultural change, a counter-institutional challenge to the commodification and bureaucratization of life. The authors argue that there are commonalities of the alternative health paradigm that cross two networks they studied: (1) a holistic network that includes food-coops and the Holistic Living Quest's combination of new age, Eastern, and social movement elements; and (2) a Christian network composed of the Committee for Freedom of Choice in Cancer Therapy, the Natural Living Group, and related organizations. Additional data came from a hospital-based alternative health clinic. The authors emphasize the social movement nature of alternative health, rather than simply lifestyle choices. They see this movement as transformative, though they admit it does not thoroughly bridge the gap between the "lifeworld" (as characterized by Habermas) and political challenge.

There is some very good material on the key elements of alternative health. The interesting discussion of classic doctor-patient interaction helps pose alternative health as a challenger. The core concepts holding together so many disparate approaches and groups include an ecological view of the body where biology, emotion, belief, spirituality, and lifestyle are integrated. Furthermore, low-tech care, self-healing, a faith in past wisdom of ordinary people, and greater patient agency are integral factors.

My main concern is that the book is driven more by theory than by data. The opening vignettes hint at a more ethnographic approach than we get. Too often interview and observational data are used to support theoretical arguments, and even then we don't get enough flavor of the people and groups. The theoretical material is sometimes quite interesting—for example, the authors view alternative health as a method of reenchanting the world, using a Weberian approach, but the book doesn't return to this later. Nor does the book return to much of the other theoretical material and thus doesn't tie things together in the end. Too many different theoretical perspectives are introduced, and it is not clear how they fit together. So the book feels top-heavy on theory compared to data and yet fails to make that theory increase our understanding of the real-life experiences of alternative health users and providers.

The authors use Walter Benjamin's concept of "aura," a reflective identification that people have with objects in the natural world that enables people to recover meaning. Schneirov and Geczik give a nod to the dangers of uncritical celebration of the past, and they emphasize the tension between aura and commodity but are ultimately too uncritical of the mystical elements. Overall, however, this concept doesn't get developed enough to make the reader feel comfortable with it. The authors criticize the marketing of alternative health products and services, noting the tension between aura and commodity, but they don't take this marketing on enough. This means, for example, that "past life regression" therapy is part of the same package of alternative health as organic foods and chiropractic.

Schneirov and Geczik "conceptualize alternative health regimes as aesthetic practices whose goals is the creation of the perfect body in complete harmony with nature." This notion stems from Foucault's notion of recapturing knowledge to achieve liberation. I find this "artful" form of "self-perfection" rather at odds with the political-economic critique of medicine, even though the authors claim to be integrating that critique.

To explain the social movement nature of alternative health, Schneirov and Geczik adopt a new social movement theory, emphasizing Melucci's idea of "submerged" movements that lie beneath the surface of overt political action where people develop a shared collective identity. The authors then return to the two alternative health networks that opened the book and claim to discover a site where the two meet: a set of beliefs about personal responsibility, a critique of biomedicine, rejection of government authority, and anti-consumerism. But the meeting point is fragmented, and it seems...