Relational chronicities: kinship, care, and ethics of responsibility.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Care for chronic illness in clinical and everyday settings is relational and underpinned by ethical dilemmas about kinship care responsibilities as much as it is about self-care practices and technologically aided living. Such is the central argument of this special issue, which explores kin care and ethics of responsibilities in the everyday lives of persons and families with chronic illness across different locations globally. Rather than outlining the importance of kin care in times and spaces where clinical attention and healthcare are absent, or examining kin care as a modality of care that is separate from, contradictory, and incompatible with the clinical one, we examine how clinical modes of attention dovetail with the ethics of kin care and relational knowledge. We explore redistributions of care responsibilities between the family and the clinic by paying attention to kinship dynamics and argue that chronicity and kinship co-constitute each other in everyday life and clinical settings.