The Sociology of Traditional,Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and traditional medicine (TM) are important social phenomena. This article reviews the sociological literature on the topic. First, it addresses the question of terminology, arguing that the naming process is a glimpse into the complexities of power and history that characterize the field. Second, focusing on the last 15 years of scholarship, it considers how sociological research on users and practitioners of TM/CAM has developed in that time. Third, it addresses two newer strands of work termed here the ‘big picture’ and the ‘big question’. The big picture includes concepts that offer interpretation of what is happening at a societal level to constrain and enable observed patterns of social practice (pluralism, integration, hybridity and activism). The big question, ‘Does it work?’, is one of epistemology and focuses on two developing fields of critical enquiry – first, social critiques of medical science knowledge production and, second, attempts to explain the nature of interventions, i.e. how they work. Finally, the article examines the role of sociology moving forward.     

Testing for multivariate normality via univariate tests: A case study using lead isotope ratio data

Samples from ore bodies, mined for copper in antiquity, can be characterized by measurements on three lead isotope ratios. Given sufficient samples, it is possible to estimate the lead isotope field-a three-dimensional construct-that characterizes the ore body. For the purposes of estimating the extent of a field, or assessing whether bronze artefacts could have been made using copper from a particular field, it is often assumed that fields have a trivariate normal distribution. Using recently published data, for which the sample sizes are larger than usual, this paper casts doubt on this assumption. A variety of tests of univariate normality are applied, both to the original lead isotope ratios and to transformations of them based on principal component analysis; the paper can be read as a case study in the use of tests of univariate normality for assessing multivariate normality. This is not an optimal approach, but is sufficient in the cases considered to suggest that fields are, in fact, 'non-normal'. A direct test of multivariate normality confirms this. Some implications for the use of lead isotope ratio data in archaeology are discussed.     

A Case for Better Graphics: The Unclassed Choropleth Map

In recent years a number of researchers have shown a strong interest in statistical graphics. One widely used graphical method is the “statistical map,” or what is better known in cartography as the choropleth map. A factor in the use of these maps has been the need to group data into classes, raising the obvious question of defining optimum class intervals. Computer technology now makes it possible to produce unclassed choropleth maps, minimizing quantization error. An example of the two methods is given using criminal justice statistics. The unclassed maps are more accurate with regard to quantization error and appear to be of superior visual quality     

UNEMPLOYMENT AS A DRAMATURGICAL PROBLEM: TEACHING IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT IN A WORK INCENTIVE PROGRAM

This article is an analysis of aspects of everyday life in a Work Incentive Program (WIN). It is intended to apply and extend Adam's (1978) political phenomenology of domination by analyzing inferiorization as a feature of contemporary human service work. The analysis focuses on dramaturgical instruction of unemployed welfare recipients as a process of inferiorization through which clients are cast as disadvantaged in their dealings with area employers. Clients were taught to strategically manipulate impressions of self in order to positively impress area employers and get jobs. The analysis addresses five primary questions: (1) How is the dramaturgical perspective organized as an ideology of inferiorization in WIN and other human service organizations; (2) What was the context within which dramaturgical instruction was defined by the WIN staff as a legitimate response to their clients' problems; (3) What were the assumptions and claims associated with the staff's dramaturgical framing of unemployment; (4) How was the dramaturgical frame used by the staff to identify concrete rules for proper job-seeking: and (5) How did the staff legitimate the perspective and rules associated with it in their interactions with clients?     

CONSTRAINTS ON THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN FROM NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING BACKGROUNDS AND AUSTRALIAN-BORN WOMEN IN TRADE UNIONS

This paper compares traditional explanations given for women's under-representation in union affairs with those given by a group of NESB and Australian-born female members of a large New South Wales union. The women's explanations emerge in sharp contrast to traditionally-held wisdom about women's union participation.     

Reconstructing a Different South: The American Missionary Association and Jamaica, 1834–65

After British emancipation, a group of American abolitionists initiated a Christian mission to emancipated people in Jamaica, later to be adopted by the American Missionary Association (AMA). Using books and letters written by Americans in Jamaica, this article traces the evolution of evangelical abolitionists' views of emancipation between the 1830s and the 1850s. I argue that the Jamaica Mission taught its parent organisation, the AMA, to value landownership as the best means of ‘civilizing’ freed people, a belief that explains in part the AMA's support for land rights for American ex-slaves during and after the Civil War.     

A Systematic Review of Interventions for Elder Abuse

The purpose of this study was to use rigorous systematic review methods to summarize the effectiveness of interventions for elder abuse. Only eight studies met our inclusion criteria. Evidence regarding the recurrence of abuse following intervention was limited, but the interventions for which this outcome was reported failed to reduce, and may have even increased, the likelihood of recurrence. Elder abuse interventions had no significant effect on case resolution and at-risk caregiver outcomes, and had mixed results regarding professional knowledge and behavior related to elder abuse. The included studies had important methodological limitations that limit our ability to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of these interventions.     

DISPUTE DOMAINS

This article decribes how organizational disputes emerge within, and are shaped by, dispute domains . We analyze dispute domains as the fundamental assumptions, vocabularies, orientations, concerns, and constraints that circumscribe conflictual interaction in particular organizational settings. Organizational disputes are transformed as they move from one dispute domain to another. We examine such dispute transformations in the context of staff-client dispute processing in a welfare-to-work program, and conclude by discussing the implications for analyzing organizations as interrelated dispute domains.     

RATIFICATION AND UTILIZATION: HYPNOTIC TECHNIQUES TO FACILITATE REFRAMING DURING EARLY MARITAL THERAPY

This paper reexamines the Mental Research Institute (MRI) associates' intervention of refraining in marital therapy. The roots of MRI refraining are traced back to Milton Erickson. Ericksonian strategies of ratification and utilization are introduced to enhance the artistry of refraining construction and delivery. Through the use of these strategies, there is a heightened emphasis to four departures from the MRI position: (a) nonverbal language, (b) conjoint refraining,(c) unconscious "wisdom," and (d) recursive therapy. Examples of ratification and utilization techniques illustrate how the marital therapist can have greater therapeutic impact in designing reframes based on the "raw material" of presenting couple behaviors.     

The Environmental Movement and the Left: Antagonists or Allies?

This paper examines the potential impact of the Left on the goals, issues, strategies, and constituencies of the contemporary environmental movement, Contrasting the earlier disparagement of the movement by the Left with increased Leftist attraction to the mature movement, it is argued that the Left could contribute a theoretical context for environmental issues and influence segments of the environmental movement through an emphasis on protest strategies and the differential economic impacts of environmental problems.