Hughes Catherine, Heugten Kate van, Keeling Sally, Szekely Francisc
Department of Social Practice, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland 1025, New Zealand.
Department of Human Services and Social Work, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand.
Cancers (Basel). 2017 Jun 5;9(6):64. doi: 10.3390/cancers9060064.
How do people with cancer occupy places within the health system during their journey through palliative care? The answer to this question was explored by the authors as part of a wider ethnographic study of eight people's journeys from referral to palliative care services to the end of life. This article reports on findings that have emerged from ongoing analysis that has been completed in the years proceeding data collection. An ethnographic research design was used to collect data about the participants and their family members over a three-year period. Data was collected using participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Over 380 transcripts based on field note entries and taped interviews were produced during the 1121 h of contact with participants and family members that made up the research period. Analysis of these texts identified two focal sites within Christchurch Hospital that were occupied by the participants. These were the Chemotherapy Suite and the Oncology Ward. Drawing on literature concerning previous anthropological analysis, research was conducted to understand how places affect people and how people affect places. The researchers have used a model outlined by the American ethnographer Miles Richardson to analyse two distinct sites within one hospital. As explained in Richardson's article, whose title is used to model the title of this article, a sense of place becomes apparent when comparing and contrasting two sites within the same location. Richardson's article is highly interpretative and relies not only on pre-existing theoretical frameworks but also on personal interpretation. The same approach has been used in the current article. Here, ethnographic methods require the researcher's interpretation of how participants occupied these sites. Following this approach, the Chemotherapy Suite is presented as a place where medicine dominates illness, and appears as distinct from the Oncology Ward, where disease predominates and death is secreted away.
癌症患者在接受姑息治疗的过程中是如何在医疗系统中占据一席之地的？作为一项更广泛的人种志研究的一部分，作者探讨了这个问题，该研究涉及八个人从转诊到姑息治疗服务直至生命终结的历程。本文报告了在数据收集之前几年已完成的持续分析中出现的研究结果。采用人种志研究设计，在三年时间里收集了关于参与者及其家庭成员的数据。数据通过参与观察和半结构化访谈收集。在与构成研究阶段的参与者及其家庭成员接触的1121小时内，基于实地记录和录音访谈生成了380多份文字记录。对这些文本的分析确定了克赖斯特彻奇医院内参与者所占据的两个焦点场所。它们是化疗套房和肿瘤科病房。借鉴以往人类学分析的文献，开展研究以了解场所如何影响人以及人如何影响场所。研究人员使用了美国人种志学家迈尔斯·理查森概述的模型来分析一家医院内的两个不同场所。正如理查森文章中所解释的那样（本文标题借鉴了其文章标题），当比较和对比同一地点内的两个场所时，场所感就会变得明显。理查森的文章具有很强的解释性，不仅依赖于现有的理论框架，还依赖于个人解读。本文采用了相同的方法。在这里，人种志方法要求研究人员解读参与者是如何占据这些场所的。按照这种方法，化疗套房被呈现为一个医学主导疾病的地方，与肿瘤科病房截然不同，在肿瘤科病房，疾病占主导地位，死亡被隐匿起来。
