ALTERNATIVE LAY LEADING IN HEALTH TRAJECTORIES: FROM MEDICALIZATION TO 'NATURALIZATION' OF LIFE.

Abstract

This paper intends to reflect on the heuristic properties of 'alternative lay protagonisms' in health trajectories with the propose of understanding resistance or strengthening of the medicalization of life, through the search for  'natural' observed in the discourses of users of alternative and complementary medicines (MAC), collected through semi-structured interviews. Alternative lay protagonists reflect processes underlying the construction of individual trajectories of relationship with health, where alternative, complementary or non-conventional approaches are mobilized, differing from those of the biomedical system. For this, we established a theoretical dialogue between the dominant biomedical rationality, and the meanings of lay agency, which integrates the use of MAC in health trajectories. The focus of our reflection focuses on the understanding of the logics of lay action present in the construction of health trajectories. It is these meanings and logics that we approach in this paper, debating how the search for health and ‘healthy' associated with nature and 'natural' constitute a resistance or a strengthening of the life medicalization.