Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon ethnographic research among one Ayurvedic community in the Czech Republic, I discuss the construction and role of the trust in patient-healer interaction. I am interested in how trust is negotiated and how different strategies of trust establishment influence the success of the treatment.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing upon field-work among one Ayurvedic community in the Czech Republic, I discuss the construction and role of trust in Ayurvedic practice. Through the presentation of three case studies of Ayurvedic practitioners, I compare different strategies of trust establishment. It has been argued that the personalized character of alternative medicines` practice, as opposed to depersonalization in the field of Western medicine, is one of the reasons for growing consumption of these types of medical treatments. Furthermore, where the medical practices lack institutional support the other mechanisms of authorisation and trust establishment emerge and take on a greater significance. In this context I am interested in how different forms of this presumably personalized Ayurvedic medical practice work in terms of success in treatment based on different kinds of trust construction. In quite non-regulated CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) environment in the Czech Republic most of the CAM practitioners are free to design a treatment themselves. This situation results in a large diversity in treatment and patient-healer relationships, even among one particular medicine` community. Simultaneously the absence of regulation is related to the flourishing of multiple kinds of uncertainty within the field. By examining different mechanisms of trust construction and its effects, I aim to discuss the questions like how is trust negotiated in these settings and what actors are involved in its establishment? How do the different forms of trust enactment influence the treatment?