Citation

Puri S. Patterns Prejudice 2005; 39(4): 416-430.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00313220500347873

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Puri explores the consequences of multiculturalism-based relativism in health care delivery to battered South Asian immigrnat women in England and the United States. Using ethnographic methods, her case study seeks to highlight the ways in which ‘cultural difference’ is essentialized in clinical settings in ways that result in unequal treatment of battered South Asian women by physicians. Even though loosely defined ‘South Asian cultures’ are conceptualized and politicized differently in the United States and United Kingdom, similar notions of ‘cultural sensitivity’ practised in both countries’ medical sectors result in similar inequities faced by South Asian women, raising questions about the rhetoric versus the reality of multiculturalism as an approach to health care provision. Puri questions how far ‘difference’—be it cultural, racial, religious or ethnic—should matter clinically, particularly when questions of women's health and safety are at stake.