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Paper short abstract

The paper explores the role of mistrust in redefining hierarchies between conventional and folk medicine in Georgia and, consequently, in the experimentalisation of individual healing pathways.

Paper long abstract

The paper examines how mistrust challenges the hierarchy between conventional and folk medicine in Georgia. Using the example of an ethnographic study of women who have lost their hair due to alopecia areata. Alopecia areata falls under the category of autoimmune diseases. Autoimmunity is defined as loss of normal self-tolerance (Stojanovich, 2010: A271). Intolerance towards oneself creates paradox and confusion and challenges the conventional view of the integrity of the body and self (Cohen, 2004). In the face of uncertainty, trust is crucial for achieving ontological security (Giddens, 1991:3). However, often in the healing process, people may feel more ontologically secure if they trust none of the paths completely but try them all. The futility of visits to a dermatologist may lead people to turn to folk medicine, or conversely, folk medicine may be the first source of treatment, as it does not involve going through medical bureaucracy or buying expensive medications. Thus, folk healers can play an important role in the healing process, but society may still perceive them as deviants, so trust in them may always be accompanied by suspicion. While Georgian doctors often get lost in medical translation and fail to gain trust. The phrase most often used to describe them is "They are fortune tellers." In the sense that the path to healing they predict seems to transcend reality just as much as the fortune tellers’. Therefore, mistrust can undermine the existing hierarchy between folk and conventional medicine and make healing pathways more experimental.