Changing self-medication practices, lay knowledge and rationales

Abstract

This text analyses lay knowledge and rationales in which self-medication practices are involved. After a brief critical review of the main theoretical landmarks in the analysis of lay knowledge compared with expert knowledge, the objective is to demonstrate the current forms of lay appropriation and reconversion of expert knowledge and the modes of expertisation that this shared knowledge reveals. The text discusses, on the one hand, the new forms of lay dependence on expert knowledge and, on the other, the sociological potential which these forms entail in terms of the development of new areas of lay autonomy, by focusing on the topic of self-medication and a typology of modes of lay cognitive construction, namely spontaneous knowledge, mediated knowledge and confirmed knowledge. The constructed nature of this knowledge, which is not simply mimetically reproduced from expert sources, reveals the need for a new epistemological dialogue between the different theoretical trends that explore the reflexivity of modern societies.