Paper short abstract:

Touch and the therapeutic relationship facilitate communication. Here I evaluate massage ethnography in a study of eight participants with life-limiting conditions and consider its potential as a method to address the epistemic injustices of conventional palliative care research methods.

Paper long abstract:

Palliative care research raises important ethical and practical considerations, but preventing people with life-limiting conditions from participating in research denies them the opportunity to inform practice with their knowledge. Massage ethnography is a novel means for suitably resourced social scientists to use massage sessions to gather verbal and non-verbal information in ways that do not impact on the dignity and resources of patients who have depleted energy and limited time. Touch and the therapeutic relationship facilitate communication through mechanisms that can adapt to diverse circumstances and environments. Here I describe and evaluate the use of massage ethnography in a study of eight participants with life-limiting conditions – primarily Parkinson’s Disease – and consider its potential as a method to address the epistemic injustices of conventional end-of-life research methods.