Davis, C.S., Snider, M.J., King, L., Shukraft, A., Sonda, J.D., Hicks, L., Irvin, L.
A Time to Live and a Time to Die: Heterotopian Spatialities and Temporalities in a Pediatric Palliative Care Team
(2019) Health Communication, 34 (9), pp. 931-941.
DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2018.1443262
Abstract
The death of a child creates especially poignant feelings and extreme stress, distress, and devastation for family members and healthcare providers. In addition, serious or long-term illness forces a reconstruction of our experiences with time and space. In this paper, we report on a long-term ethnographic study of a Pediatric Palliative Care Team (PPCT). Using the concepts of spatiality and temporality; Deleuze’s concepts of smooth and striated spaces; Innis’s concepts of space and time biases; Foucault’s concept of heterotopian space—places with multiple layers of meaning; and a related concept of heterokairoi—moments in time with multiple possibilities—we consider how the PPCT constructs and reconstructs meaning in the midst of chaos, ethical dilemmas, and heartbreaking choices. © 2018, © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Index Keywords
article, child, human, palliative therapy, death