Contested knowledge, contested health: The social politics of regulating alternative medicine in Canada

This thesis explores regulation of alternative medicine in Canada. A sociological operationalization of 'alternative medical practice' is developed and used to examine sociodemographic features of users of alternative medicine in Canada. Users of alternative medicine were not found to differ substantially from non-users. Alternative medical practices were shown to be increasing in popularity over the last ten years. A macro sociological analysis of orthodox medicine as a hegemonic ideology is presented in chapter 3. This is supplemented with an Actor Network Theory analysis of the Federal 'regulatory network'. Chapter 4 develops ANT as a heuristic for social policy analysis. Chapter 5 then traces the "heterogenous engineering" efforts of orthodox medicine in concert with Health Canada. The re-engineering efforts of the Expert Advisory Panel On Natural Health Products are then explored as an instance of hegemonic resistance. Analysis is based on original analysis of textual data supplemented with in-depth interview data.