Awards

• Winner of 15th Annual Modest Reixach Prize 2016 (Spain)

Overview

This book examines children and young people’s attempts to participate in conversations about their own treatment throughout uncertain cancer trajectories, including the events leading up to diagnosis, treatment, remission, relapse, and cure or death. Clearly and compellingly written, Clemente relies on a new multi-layered method to identify six cancer communication strategies Illustrates that communication is central to how children, parents, and healthcare professionals constitute, influence, and make sense of the social worlds they inhabit—or that they want to inhabit Provides ethnographic case studies of childhood cancer patients in Spain, using children's own words Examines the challenges of how to talk to and how to encourage patients' involvement in reatment discussions In his critique of the “telling” versus “not telling” debates, Clemente argues that communication should be adjusted to the children’s own needs, and that children's own questions can indicate how much or little they want to be involved Uncertain Futures is the winner of the 15th Annual Modest Reixach Prize.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ignasi Clemente (Hunter College, City University of New York)
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Imprint:   Wiley-Blackwell
Dimensions:   Width: 17.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 24.60cm
Weight:   0.522kg
ISBN:  

9781118909713

ISBN 10:   1118909712
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   09 October 2015
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Series Preface ix Acknowledgments xii Preface xiv 1. Children: Contributions to Communication and Illness 1 Alternatives to Speaking 5 Disclosure as a Dynamic and Heterogeneous Process 7 Disclosure to Children with Cancer 10 Problematizing Participation 13 Uncertainty and the Practice of Optimism 21 Multiple Uncertainties 21 Hierarchically Organized Uncertainties 23 Variable Uncertainties 23 Practicing Hope and Optimism 25 Ethnography and Conversation Analysis 26 Plan of the Book 31 2. A Linguistic Anthropologist in a Pediatric Cancer Unit 33 Culture and Disclosure Practices in Catalonia 34 Fieldwork with Children 38 Contexts of Children’s Questions 42 Investigating Avoidance 44 Multiple Ways of Talking about Cancer 47 3. Living and Dealing with Cancer 49 Focusing on Treatment 51 Guessing 55 Estar baixet (Having Low Blood Cell Counts) 56 Les llagues (Mouth Sores) 57 La febre (Fever and Infections) 58 Being Together 60 Acompanyar (Being at the Patient’s Side) 61 Menjar (Eating) 63 Fer una visita (Visiting) 64 Talking Privately 67 Uncertainties of Treatment 71 4. Co]constructing Uncertainty 74 Questions and Answers 76 Uncertainty and the Topic of Questions 79 Contingent Answers 80 Contingent Questions 86 Uncertainty and the Action of Questions 88 Answers that Lead to Subsequent Actions 90 Avoiding Answers and Avoiding Silence 93 Stepping into the Uncertain Future One Turn at a Time 100 5. Engaging in Communication at Catalonia Hospital 102 Learning the Diagnosis 103 L’entrevista (The Treatment Interview) 109 “And When Will I Be Completely Cured?” 111 Six Communication Strategies 127 6. Patient Pressure and Medical Authority 129 Everyday Life in Treatment 130 “How Many Chemos Do I Have Left?” 133 Seeking Answers Without Challenging Medical Authority 151 7. The Limits of Optimism at the End of Treatment 153 Remission 154 Relapse 159 Negotiating Death 161 “Is the Day of the Autotransplant Going to Be Delayed?” 168 Optimistic Collusion 178 8. Conclusion 180 Appendix A: Profiles of Patients 189 Children (ages 3-6) 189 Young people (ages 11-18) 190 Appendix B: Transcription Conventions 193 References 197 Index 214

Reviews

...opens up broader margins of reflection about how medical diagnoses, and in general medical communication, are delivered and negotiated and provides the reader with extensive references with which the theoretical discussion is constantly confronted and challenged...Clemente is surely paving the way toward a more fertile and effective collaboration between medical and linguistic anthropology... - Letizia Bonanno, AAA Book Forum, 2016 Clemente opens our minds and hearts to the everyday lives of children with cancer, their parents and clinicians as they interact with one another, indeed as they carry on, in the face of numerous uncertainties. Myra Bluebond-Langner, University College, London and Rutgers University Ignasi Clemente's book deserves to be read by all who are concerned with the state of health care communication, whether involving cancer or other serious illness, patients who are children or adults, and communications in hospitals, clinics or other medical settings. Douglas Maynard, University of Wisconsin Uncertain Futures insightfully explores the delicate balance between silence and discussion, and sheds light on how the illness extends beyond the patient as parents rearrange their lives to love and care for their children in extremely difficult circumstances. Marjorie Goodwin, University of California, Los Angeles

...opens up broader margins of reflection about how medical diagnoses, and in general medical communication, are delivered and negotiated and provides the reader with extensive references with which the theoretical discussion is constantly confronted and challenged...Clemente is surely paving the way toward a more fertile and effective collaboration between medical and linguistic anthropology... - Letizia Bonanno, AAA Book Forum, 2016 Clemente opens our minds and hearts to the everyday lives of children with cancer, their parents and clinicians as they interact with one another, indeed as they carry on, in the face of numerous uncertainties. Myra Bluebond-Langner, University College, London and Rutgers University Ignasi Clemente's book deserves to be read by all who are concerned with the state of health care communication, whether involving cancer or other serious illness, patients who are children or adults, and communications in hospitals, clinics or other medical settings. Douglas Maynard, University of Wisconsin Uncertain Futures insightfully explores the delicate balance between silence and discussion, and sheds light on how the illness extends beyond the patient as parents rearrange their lives to love and care for their children in extremely difficult circumstances. Marjorie Goodwin, University of California, Los Angeles

Clemente s work undoubtedly opens up broader margins of reflection about how medical diagnoses, and in general medical communication, are delivered and negotiated and provides the reader with extensive references with which the theoretical discussion is constantly confronted and challenged. -Letizia Bonanno, Anthropology News. Uncertain Futures is a complex text which actively engages with the legacies informing the author s framing of the lives of young cancer patients and their relatives. In so doing, Clemente is surely paving the way toward a more fertile and effective collaboration between medical and linguistic anthropology, which might mutually benefit from theoretical contamination. -Letizia Bonanno, Anthropology News. Uncertain Futures definitely provides original insight on how patienthood and childhood are experienced when illness reshapes the terms and meanings of time and hope for both children and their kin. -Letizia Bonanno, Anthropology News.

Author Information

Ignasi Clemente is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Hunter College, CUNY, USA. His research interests include sociocultural and communicative aspects of pain and suffering, childhood studies, and embodied communication. His research on chronically ill children has been published in journals including Social Science and Medicine, Sociology of Health and Illness, and Communication and Medicine. Among others, he has contributed to the Oxford Textbook of Paediatric Pain (2013), the Handbook of Conversation Analysis (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), Healthcare Settings: Policy, Participation and New Technologies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and the Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism (Blackwell, 2008).

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