Sharing the Burden of Care: Family Caregivers in Cancer and Psychiatric Treatment in Contemporary Southern Vietnam

Recent scholarship on the treatment of chronic diseases in neoliberalizing contexts frame patients as individuated selves enacting biopolitical imperatives toward self-care. However, in public psychiatric and oncology hospitals in contemporary southern Vietnam, it is instead the family unit, rather than the individual patient, that is “responsibilized” to enable access to medical care. Indeed, the norms and structures of Vietnam’s healthcare system presume the participation of informal familial caregiving. This paper argues that biopolitical governance in Vietnam is contingent on long-standing practices and ideals surrounding the family and moral sentiments.