Authors: Mattingly, Cheryl¹; Grøn, Lone²; Meinert, Lotte³

Source: Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, Volume 35, Number 3, September 2011 , pp. 347-375(29)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

The task of caring for those with chronic illnesses has gained a new centrality in health care at a global level. We introduce the concept of “chronic homework“ to offer a critical reflection on the treatment of chronic illnesses in three quite different national and local contexts: Uganda, Denmark, and the United States. A major challenge for clinicians, patients, and family caregivers is how to navigate the task of moving health care from clinic to home. By “chronic homework,“ we refer to the work patients and families are expected to carry out in their home contexts as part of the treatment of chronic conditions. Families and patients spend time receiving training by clinical experts in the various tasks they are to do at home. While this “colonization“ of the popular domain could easily be understood from a Foucauldian perspective as yet another emerging mode of governmentality, this a conceptualization can oversimplify the way specific practices of homework are re-imagined and redirected by patients and significant others in their home surroundings. In light of this re-invention of homework in local home contexts, we foreground another conceptual trope, describing chronic homework as a borderland practice.

Keywords: Chronic illness; Global health care; Family caregiving; Cultural borderland

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-011-9225-z

Affiliations: 1: Department of Anthropology, Division of Occupational Science and Therapy, University of Southern California, Grace Ford Salvatori Hall, 3601 Watt Way, Room 130, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA, Email: mattingl@usc.edu 2: The Danish Institute for Health Services Research, Dampfærgevej 27-29, 2100, Copenhagen Ø, Denmark, Email: lg@dsi.dk 3: Department of Anthropology and Ethnography, Aarhus University, Nobel Parken 1453, Chr. Skousvej 3, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark, Email: etnolm@hum.au.dk

Publication date: 2011-09-01

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