ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on nearly three months of participant observation fieldwork in a hospice facility in the United States. The thrust of the research is autoethnographic. This means that the researcher’s thoughts, behaviours, and material objects – also known as mentifacts, sociofacts, and artefacts – are brought to bear on the analysis. The data provide evidence that experiences not unlike those of ‘day-to-day’ life can be created within hospice settings. Despite the logistics of alleviating pain and suffering, dedicated facilities that cater to terminally ill patients can improve by acknowledging the need to deliver holistic care and by revisiting the aims of hospice founder Cicely Saunders. This case study demonstrates that an aesthetic of dying need not be differentiated from an aesthetic of living, for in essence they are one and the same.
