Individualising difference, negotiating culture: Intersections of culture and care

Abstract

In this article, we focus on developing a critical sociology of ‘cultural and linguistic diversity’ as evident in cancer care praxis, drawing on the perspectives of cancer care health professionals. Set within the context of increasing efforts on the part of healthcare providers to ‘accommodate difference’ and ‘incorporate diversity’, we aimed to utilise participants’ accounts of practice to ask: how do we and how should we think about and operationalise ‘culture’ (if at all) in cancer care settings. Drawing on eight focus groups with doctors, nurses, allied health staff and multicultural community workers, here we explore their accounts of: othering and over-simplification; the role of absences in biographical reciprocity; intimacy, care and carelessness; and entanglements of culture with other aspects of the person. Based on their accounts, we argue for a broadening of the examination of the nexus of culture and care, to focus on the problematics of othering, intimacy, reciprocity and complexity.