Ethnomedicine and dominant medicine in multicultural Australia: a critical realist reflection on the case of Korean-Australian immigrants in Sydney

TLDR

Medical anthropology is often limited by interpretivist explanations that ignore contextual factors, yet understanding alternative health care requires considering societal, national, and global changes that shape individual responses. This study reflects on Korean‑Australian ethno‑medical practices in Sydney and examines how the influx of ethnomedicine reshapes dominant biomedicine in Australia. Using interpretivist and political‑economy perspectives, the authors analyzed 120 interviews from 1995‑1997 with biomedical doctors, traditional health professionals, community leaders, and migrants across socioeconomic backgrounds. The research shows that migrants’ social location alters their cultural practices, that ethnomedicine transforms dominant biomedicine, and that new social conditions drive the adoption of herbal, alternative, and New Age therapies.

Abstract

Viewed through the micro focus of an interpretive lens, medical anthropology remains mystified because interpretivist explanations seriously downplay the given context in which individual health seeking-behaviours occur. This paper draws upon both the interpretivist and political economy perspectives to reflect on the ethno medical practices within the Korean-Australian community in Sydney. We draw on research data collected between 1995 and 1997 for an earlier study of the use of biomedical and traditional medicine by Korean-Australians in Sydney. A total of 120 interviews were conducted with a range of participants, including biomedical doctors, traditional health professionals, Korean community leaders and Korean migrants representing a range of socio-economic backgrounds and migration patterns. First, the paper highlights the extent to which the social location of migrants in a host society alters or restructures their initial cultural practices they bring with them. Second, taking hanbang medicine in the Korean-Australian community as an illustrative case, the paper explores the transformation of the dominant biomedicine in Australia as a result of the influx of ethnomedicine in the era of global capitalism and global movement. In seeking to explain the popularity and supply of alternative health care, it is important to go beyond the culture of each kind of health care itself and to take into consideration the changes occurring at societal, national and global levels as well as consequential individual response to the changes. New social conditions influence the choice of health care methods, including herbal/alternative medicine, health foods and what are often called New Age therapies.