The Sensory Ethic of Care in Botswana's Cancer Ward

Julie Livingston, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, is the next speaker for the DAHSM Culpeper Seminar Series on November 13th. Julie's talk will examine the moral intimacies of care in a small oncology ward in Botswana during an emerging epidemic of cancer, as part of the surge in cancers across the global south. Based on extensive ethnographic research, the presentation follows the nurses on the ward as they provide bodily care, perform spiritual work, and stave off social death for patients experiencing disfiguring rot, and existential angst. It also simultaneously follows the patients and their relatives as they attempt to create a socially and morally meaningful world in the face of cancer in an overwrought and highly bureaucratized institution. The discussion will pay special attention to the intersubjective phenomenology of care, and the sensory dimensions of bodily distress and rehumanization. Please take note that our next Culpeper Seminar presentation is on Tuesday (not on Wednesday), November 13, 2012 from 3:30 – 5:00 pm.