Gendering in the Holistic Milieu: A Critical Realist Analysis of Homeopathic Work

Increasing attention is being paid to the economic sector known as the holistic milieu, in which alternative or New Age spiritualities are transformed into commercial products and services. Made up of a wide variety of activities and products, many marketized, this milieu is dominated by women as producers and consumers. The discourses of holism and wellbeing that underpin activity offer promises of gender equality and the freedom to develop subjectivity according to individual preferences. Despite its economic and cultural significance, little is known of why women in particular enter this sector. This article presents a critical realist analysis of how five women negotiated structural conditions and agency when leaving a mainstream occupation or organization to move into homeopathy, a key activity in the holistic milieu. I suggest that while there are numerous tensions and contradictions involved in this move, it is nonetheless a form of action that offers a different subject position and altered gender relations, based on embodied identity and exercise of agency. Whether the holistic milieu offers more equitable gender relations is less clear, but this seems less important for respondents than the other benefits the move implies.