Routledge Handbook of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Perspectives from Social Science and Law

The provision and use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been growing globally over the last 40 years. As CAM develops alongside - and sometimes integrates with - conventional medicine, this handbook provides the first major overview of its regulation and professionalization from social science and legal perspectives.

The Routledge Handbook of Complementary and Alternative Medicine draws on historical and international comparative research to provide a rigorous and thematic examination of the field. It argues that many popular and policy debates are stuck in a polarized and largely asocial discourse, and that interdisciplinary social science perspectives, theorising diversity in the field, provide a much more robust evidence base for policy and practice in the field. Divided into four sections, the handbook covers:

analytical frameworks


power, professions and health spaces


risk and regulation


perspectives for the future.


This important volume will interest social science and legal scholars researching complementary and alternative medicine, professional identify and health care regulation, as well as historians and health policymakers and regulators.