Progressing the understanding of chronic illness and its treatment: A post-human, ethological understanding of haemodialysis

Haemodialysis is a common treatment option offered internationally for people requiring kidney replacement therapy. Research exploring haemodialysis is predominantly clinical and quantitative, and improvements to its provision and receipt tends also to be clinically focused. In recent years, however, a number of studies have sought to explore the lived experience of haemodialysis. These studies tend to use semi-structured interviews and present descriptive findings. Such findings serve to raise the profile of patient perspectives and encourage thinking beyond the clinical gaze. To progress this, we apply a post-humanism approach to the understanding of the receipt of haemodialysis. Drawing on findings from a study to explore the experience and impact of in-centre, daytime, haemodialysis we follow Fox and Alldred’s ethological toolkit to provide a post-human analysis of haemodialysis. In doing so we argue that haemodialysis exists as a heterogenous and changeable assemblage of multiple and fluid, human and non-human factors that has the capacity to affect. Here we outline this post-human approach and the impact it has for understanding not just haemodialysis but also the receipt of treatment for other chronic illnesses.