Paper short abstract:

In this proposal, we refer to temporality in healthcare scenarios as a “matter of care”, and as an empirical issue. We address this from the notion of “sensitive trajectory” of time, arguing that temporality obeys a mundane question, linked to the attention of the entities that constitute it.

Paper long abstract:

Conventionally, time in health is usually assumed either as a backdrop or as a social construction from which life unfolds; only in the last two decades has it begun to be problematised as a socio-technical issue, i.e., as a “matter of concern” composed in a multiple and varied way by the articulation of heterogeneous agents. In this proposal, we refer to temporality in health care scenarios as a “matter of care” and sensitivity, considering temporality itself as an empirical issue. In concrete terms, we argue that temporality obeys a mundane question, elaborated by vulnerable practices and relations, linked to the attention and care of the entities that constitute it. We base this on a case study on the latest health reform in Chile (the Explicit Health Guarantees regime), considering 78 interviews to experts, professionals and patients, along focused ethnographic sessions on ministerial spaces and hospitals. In order to account for the conditions in which temporal configurations are composed, we consider the notion of "sensitive trajectory". With this, we intend to account for the subtle character of the composition of time and the temporality of transformations in healthcare scenarios. We will note three sensitive trajectories of time: one of primacy, one of synchrony and one of continuity. We discuss in particular the sensitive production of the durability of these trajectories and the consideration of the effort of the articulated entities to configure such formations of time.