Existential vulnerability: an ethnographic study of everyday lives with diabetes in Vietnam

Gammeltoft, Tine; Diệu, Bùi Thị Huyền; Dung, Vũ Thị Kim; Anh, Vũ Đức; Hiếu, Lê Minh; Ái, Nguyễn Thị

doi:10.1080/13648470.2021.1994334

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Diagnosis delay was also caused by the imminent requirements to bypass standard referral procedures and navigate through different medical providers in distant locations since laboratory and imaging services are not available or of sub‐standard quality in lower‐level health facilities. Recent studies examining the help‐seeking practices of other non‐communicable diseases in Vietnam have suggested a similar pattern regarding the low utilisation of health services at commune health stations as found among our informants, which is primarily due to the unpreparedness of the primary care system in attending to those related needs (Duong et al, 2019; Gammeltoft et al, 2022. Therefore, strengthening primary healthcare and establishing a mammographic screening program nationwide could significantly improve the access to and quality of diagnostic services.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Trajectories to a cancer diagnosis: Why and when women seek help for breast symptoms in Vietnam

Whittaker

2022

Health Social Care Comm

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During the 2000s, the incidence of breast cancer declined or stabilised in North America or Europe, but increased rapidly in African and Asian countries with historically low incidence (Bray et al., 2004;Joko-Fru et al., 2020). However, screening programs and breast cancer control strategies in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) generally remain lacking (Dey, 2014;Samarasekera & Horton, 2017), resulting in late-stage presentation and lower breast cancer survival rates than in high-income countries (Anderson et al., 2011;Sankaranarayanan et al., 2010). The breast cancer mortality rate is considerably higher at 15.0 deaths per 100,000 persons in countries with a low or medium Human Development Index (HDI) as compared to 12.8 deaths per 100,000 persons in higher HDI countries

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Trajectories to a cancer diagnosis: Why and when women seek help for breast symptoms in Vietnam

Whittaker

2022

Health Social Care Comm

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“…This led to new insights and new writing projects, undertaken in the company of my colleagues in Vietnam (Gammeltoft et al . 2021).…”

Section: Writing Forth Vulnerability Cultivating Ethnographic Sensibi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Owing to the close linkages between masculinity and alcohol/smoking, men with diabetes often find it difficult to handle medical demands to restrict these practices (Gammeltoft et al . 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

Everyday attentiveness: understanding diabetes in Vietnam through literary displacement

Gammeltoft

2022

Royal Anthropological Inst

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World‐wide, diabetes is taking on epidemic proportions. This is a debilitating disease that damages and destroys bodily systems unless blood sugar levels are kept close to normal, and patients are therefore urged to practise attentive self‐management. Among people with type II diabetes in Vietnam, such everyday attentiveness seems to far exceed clinical recommendations, suffusing daily lives in pervasive and yet elusive ways. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern Vietnam, this article aims to depict the lifeworlds in which diabetes attentiveness unfolds. Seeking to capture the inchoate ways in which diabetes alters everyday lives, the article develops literary displacement as an experimental mode of writing‐cum‐inquiry that combines standard ethnography with ethnographic fiction. Taking diabetes in Vietnam as its case, the article shows how literary displacement can contribute to cultivating ethnographic as well as analytical sensibilities, strengthening the capacity of anthropology to capture subtle and subdued layers of life.

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“…Rather than transitioning into a balanced and coherent new identity as a person living with a chronic disease, people like Văn seemed to find themselves caught in an uneasy state of ambiguity, living with a persistent inner nervousness, an affective tone of mild discomfort. Their shift was, it seemed, a shift into another, more complicated and troubled way of being (Gammeltoft et al 2021).…”

Section: Chronic Illness As Transformative Experience: the Quest For ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like other research projects I have conducted in Vietnam, this is a collaborative and capacity‐building project, involving Vietnamese and Danish researchers and producing Vietnamese as well as English‐language publications (e.g., Gammeltoft 2020; Gammeltoft et al. 2021; Ái et al. 2019; Vũ Đức Anh et al.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Force of Love: Type II Diabetes in Vietnam as Tentatively Transformative Experience

Gammeltoft

2021

Ethos

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In Vietnam, as in many other countries across the world, type II diabetes is attaining epidemic proportions. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Vietnam's Thái Bình province, this article highlights the affective complexities that arise when people strive to adjust to a life with this chronic, debilitating disease. While finding their daily existence radically altered, people with diabetes also actively resisted transformation, insisting on the continuity of their lives. This resistance to transformation was, the research revealed, fueled by the force of love: when their disease threatened to place them at the margins of family and community, people responded by enacting love, striving to attend to others as they always had. This study from Vietnam illustrates how transformative experiences may be characterized by hesitation, reluctance, and resistance, as people work against change while at the same time ambivalently embracing it. [attention, care, chronic illness, diabetes, love, Vietnam] Tóm Tắt Ta . i Việt Nam cũng như nhiều nơi khác trên thế giới, bệnh đái tháo đường týp 2 đang có tỷ lệ mắc cao.Dựa trên nghiên cứu điền dã khảo tả dân tộc ho . c thực hiện ta . i tỉnh Thái Bình, Việt Nam, bài báo này nêu bật những phức hợp cảm xúc diễn ra khi người bệnh cố gắng thích ứng với cuộc sống cùng cȃn bệnh ma . n tính gây suy nhược này. Trong khi nhận ra đời sống thường nhật của ho . đã thay đổi ma . nh mẽ, những người bệnh tham gia trong nghiên cứu này cũng nỗ lực kháng cự la . i sự chuyển biến, nhất mực tiếp tu . c cuộc đời ho . . Sự kháng cự chuyển biến này, như nghiên cứu đã chỉ ra, chứa chất sức ma . nh yêu thương: khi cȃn bệnh đẩy ho . ra bên lề gia đình và cộng đồng, người ta đã đáp la . i bằng cách bộc lộ sự yêu thương, nỗ lực chȃm sóc nhau như ho . vẫn hằng thế. Nghiên cứu từ Việt Nam này cho thấy cách mà các trải nghiệm chuyển biến đã diễn ra như thế nào cùng với nỗi e dè, sự lưỡng lự và sự kháng cự, khi mà người ta vừa cố gắng chống la . i sự chuyển biến vừa đón nhận nó một cách mơ hồ.Every love story is a potential grief story. Barnes (2014, 67) "Love (yêu quý) and harmony (thuận hòa) make your mother happy. Love and respect (yêu kính) for father and mother is all that I want. Money, silk, or brocade cannot compare to that. You give me family love (các con tặng me . tình thân gia đình). You have already given this to father and me… respect for your grandparents, love for your parents, harmony among siblings…"Vȃn's wife, An, shakes her head, laughing. "No, I forget!" 1 We are sitting next to the house where Vȃn and his family live, in a makeshift sofa arrangement placed in the comfortable shade under a longan tree. It's a mild April day, not yet too hot to sit outside during the

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Existential vulnerability: an ethnographic study of everyday lives with diabetes in Vietnam

Cited by 9 publications

References 44 publications

Trajectories to a cancer diagnosis: Why and when women seek help for breast symptoms in Vietnam

Trajectories to a cancer diagnosis: Why and when women seek help for breast symptoms in Vietnam

Everyday attentiveness: understanding diabetes in Vietnam through literary displacement

The Force of Love: Type II Diabetes in Vietnam as Tentatively Transformative Experience

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