Abstract
This article explores family caregiving in Vietnamese households affected by type 2 dia-betes. Drawing on existential phenomenology and on fieldwork conducted in northernVietnam, I develop the concept of care calibrations as a tool to understand how fam-ily members respond socially and morally to the needs for care that diabetes confrontsthem with. The concept of care calibrations highlights how chronic care is undertakenas an ethical endeavor within domestic environments characterized by multiple careneeds. The article explores how caregivers find their bearings in complex care situa-tions by looking toward dominant moral standards while also adjusting pragmaticallyto the contingencies of domestic lives, placing themselves in others’ situations. On thisethnographic basis, the article calls for more sustained anthropological attention to thesocial implications of human capacities for sympathetic co-living and particularly to the intermediate realm between selves and others where capacities for moral imagination reside
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | American Anthropologist |
| Vol/bind | 126 |
| Udgave nummer | 4 |
| Sider (fra-til) | 596-607 |
| ISSN | 0002-7294 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 2024 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:This research was conducted under the auspices of the Vietnamese\u2010Danish VALID project () (17\u2010M09\u2010KU)), funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. I am grateful to VALID colleagues in Vietnam and Denmark for inspiring collaboration and particularly to my co\u2010researchers on the ethnographic components of the project: B\u00F9i Th\u1ECB Huy\u1EC1n Di\u1EC7u, \u0110\u1EB7ng Th\u1ECB Ng\u1ECDc Anh, L\u00EA Minh Hi\u1EBFu, Nguy\u1EC5n Th\u1ECB \u00C1i, Nguy\u1EC5n V\u00E2n Ti\u1EBFn, Ph\u1EA1m Th\u1ECB M\u1EF9 H\u1EA1nh, V\u0169 Th\u1ECB Kim Dung, and V\u0169 \u0110\u1EE9c Anh. I thank the people in Th\u00E1i B\u00ECnh who took part in the study and Th\u00E1i B\u00ECnh health authorities and health\u2010care workers for supporting our work. I am also grateful for the generous comments from the anonymous reviewers and helpful guidance from the editor throughout the editorial process. Living Together with Chronic Disease: Informal Support for Diabetes Management in Vietnam American Anthropologist
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). American Anthropologist published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Anthropological Association.