Acupuncture worlds in Argentina: Contested knowledge, legitimation processes, and everyday practices

This dissertation examines the professional organization and practice of acupuncture in Argentina. Argentinean acupuncture is a significant case for study because it has developed as a contested field of expertise, especially since national regulations passed in 2001 proclaimed that acupuncture was a medical act, restricting its practice to medical doctors.;The main research question that this dissertation addresses is how legitimacy and authority over acupuncture are claimed and achieved by their biomedical and non-biomedical practitioners in a local context of occupational competition and biomedical dominance. Given the institutionally unsettled status of non-MD acupuncturists (Argentineans and immigrants), this study further inquires how nonphysicians have managed to work and build and sustain an occupational identity. And given that acupuncture is a healing intervention characterized by a relative meaning-indeterminacy, it investigates the various meanings that practitioners attach to its practice.;The study draws on the social worlds sociological perspective and integrates analytic concerns from the studies on professions and occupations (e.g., jurisdictional disputes, professionalization processes, segmentation within professional groups) and the sociology of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (e.g., emerging forms of integrative care, and practitioners' identity formation in contexts of biomedical dominance). The study uses a qualitative methodology that draws on in-depth interviews with 45 key players, qualified informants, and grassroots practitioners, and also examines documentary sources.;This research shows an on-going process of institutionalization of medical acupuncture, especially since 2001, as well as remarks the uncertain outcomes of organized non-MD acupuncturists' mobilization to institutionalize their practices and achieve legal recognition as health professionals given their organizational weakness and internal fragmentation and competition. The study also shows that medical acupuncturists present themselves as critical insiders of the medical profession and who see their integrated practice as a way to redress some of the pitfalls of mainstream medical care. Non-MD acupuncturists, on the other hand, build an oppositional occupational identity that highlights their superior and authentic knowledge of acupuncture in contrast to allopathic modalities. The study reveals informal networks of cooperation between MDs and non-MD acupuncturists, mostly among Argentinean practitioners, as a way to protect their contested healing activities and share responsibility for patients' care.