The Lived Experience of Palliative Chaplains: Practising Hospitality in an Inhospitable Land

This book explores the unique challenges of disenfranchisement faced by Christian chaplains working within the secular and pluralistic context of contemporary healthcare. The case study focuses on practitioners in Hong Kong and showcases the utilisation of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as a fruitful basis for practical theological endeavours. The role and perspective of the palliative chaplain as spiritual care specialist is examined, along with the tension that exists with the cultural and organisational context in which they operate. The chapters examine how end-of-life care practitioners can often face marginalisation, oppression, vulnerability, and disorientation amongst other difficult experiences that the author unites under a general theme of ’homelessness’. The book contributes to discussions regarding fuller integration of the spiritual dimension within a holistic vision of end-of-life care provision. It will be of particular interest to scholars of practical theology and chaplaincy, as well as palliative medicine.

Caroline Yih holds a PhD in Practical Theology from the University of Aberdeen, UK, and is honorary post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Aberdeen as well as an honorary post-doctoral research associate at the Chung Chi Divinity School of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her ongoing research focuses on trauma and different forms of disenfranchisement.