DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND BOUNDARY WORK IN HOMEOPATHY
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND BOUNDARY WORK IN HOMEOPATHY

Summary/Abstract: In this paper we examine the evolving roles of digital technology in shaping the professional identity and therapeutic encounters of homeopathic practitioners. Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine that relies almost exclusively in making a diagnostic on patients’ verbal description of their symptoms. In contrast to the biomedical diagnosis, the homeopathic diagnosis does not place the patient in a disease category, but in a remedy category. The software that aids homeopathic professionals in their practice is based on a digitalization of books that organized the homeopathic knowledge of remedies and symptoms (repertories and Materia Medica). Organized as an inventory of descriptions of remedies and symptoms, the software operates algorithmically in helping the homeopath to match patients’ symptoms to possible remedies and select the most adequate remedy. During the consultation, the homeopath makes a patient file by writing a selection of words extracted from patients’ talk that express symptoms in great detail – including feelings, signs of suffering and various lifestyle preferences. In this process the homeopath and the software co-create the patient’s “person” as a collection of more-or-less idiosyncratic symptoms, in their attempt to match the patient’s symptomatology with the description of one single remedy. Drawing on interviews with patients and homeopaths, observations of consultations and homeopathic seminars, we argue that the use of digital technology is practiced as boundary work. Firstly, digital technology becomes a boundary marker between the patient and the homeopath. Secondly, digital technology helps homeopaths to legitimize their practice as a rigorous one, being one of the strategies used to gain acceptance in the health-care ecosystem. Last but not least, by presenting the software as only a time-saving device, a neutral aide for making “intelligent suggestions” that can be confirmed but also rejected by the homeopath’s judgment, homeopaths create a distinct professional identity oriented around a central principle of their practice: “Treat the patient as a whole person”.

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