Representation and Negotiation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is not only increasingly popular and frequently used in Western societies, it is also a growing scientific field. But how are results from clinical CAM studies received and represented by other researchers? This article discusses the migration and representation of three clinical CAM studies, published in high-impact medical journals, analyzed with help from quantitative and qualitative citation context analysis. The results indicate a great variety concerning the migration of results and that this kind of research is subject to different kinds of boundary work, especially concerning biomedical standards and design of the studies.