Through an hourglass. Re-thinking Ethnography of the Relationship between Biomedicine and Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Croatia//U središtu pješcanog sata. Etnografi ja odnosa biomedicine i kompelmentarne i alternativne medicine u Hrvatskoj

Abstract

This paper is based on author’s three-year research on the choices patients make when facing an illness, on the decisions they make in choosing a particular medical system and medical treatment, and on the reasons of the increasing popularity of complementary and alternative medical practices in contemporary Croatia. Starting from the patients’ narratives and their embodied experience as presented through heir encounters with illness, the paper discusses and analyzes the methodological, theoretical and epistemological realities of the co-existence of biomedicine and complementary and alternative Medicine (CAM).