Rationalization of Japanese Herbal Medication: The Hegemony of Orchestrated Pluralism

Abstract

Anthropologists are in general supportive of pluralism in medical systems and of the integration of indigenous medical systems with biomedicine into medical practice. In this paper, unqualified support for the incorporation of alternative into the organizational system within which the dominant medical system is practiced is criticized because dominant medical systems are liable to be used to justify existing social and political relations in any given society. Hence any inequalities of power and access to the necessities of life in a given society remain unquestioned. The incorporation of herbal medicine into the biomedical system in Japan is described as an illustrative case study in orchestrated medical integration. Even though the traditional practitioners in this case are themselves MDs, the practice of herbal medicine is radically transformed upon its incorporation into socialized mainstream medicine in Japan. Rationalization of the system has led to a transforma...