Abstract

LUXARDO, Natalia; ALONSO, Juan Pedro  and  ESQUIVEL, Juan Cruz. Secularisation in the care of the dying: moving from christian care provided at hospices to the technical expertise of. Soc. relig. [online]. 2013, vol.23, n.40, pp.114-142. ISSN 1853-7081.

Secularisation and End-of-life Care. The aim of this article is to describe the process of secularisation in the care of the dying, with a focus on the development of the modern movement of hospices and palliative care. The article describes the shift that took place in the care of the dying from the traditional christian institutes in charge of the care -hospices- until the XX century and the development of an area of technical expertise, palliative care, within a larger process of medicalization of life. Based upon historical and technical sources were examined along with empirical data, the study concludes that the seculartisation of the hospices movement and interventions were not only replaced by expertise and end-of-life competence (from hospices to hospitals, from volunteers to physicians and psychologists) but transformed into a new scientific discourse and device of control of biomedicine.

Keywords : Medicalisation; Secularisation; End of life; Palliative care..

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