Intercultural Communication and Cancer

This Element mentions that cancer is increasingly recognized as a complex, multidimensional social experience. This highlights the role of communication in seeking and receiving a diagnosis, managing disclosure, and incorporating treatment and recovery into everyday life. The experiences of migrant women in Asia are currently underexplored.

Cancer is increasingly recognized as a complex, multidimensional social experience rather than purely a physical or biological disease. This, in turn, highlights the role of communication in cancer-related 'work' such as seeking and receiving a diagnosis, managing disclosure, and incorporating treatment and recovery into everyday life. Although an extensive body of work examining cancer and communication has investigated some of this complexity, the experiences of migrant women in Asia are currently underexplored. In this Element, I argue that the complexity of cancer diagnosis and disclosure for this group can be usefully examined from a perspective of intercultural communication. To support this argument, I investigate instances of intercultural communication that unfolded in a series of focus groups with Filipino migrant domestic workers diagnosed with cancer in Hong Kong.