Cultivating a ‘Habitus of Multiplicity’ in Cross‐Cultural Medicine: From Case Study Conflict to Many‐Sided Conditions of Care Through Process and Jain Metaphysics

Prompted by a nursing case study that occurred in 2022, this paper joins the perspectives of a nurse practitioner and cross-cultural medical ethics professor to consider who can ask a question in the healthcare system, what questions can be heard, and how to develop pluralistic care models-beyond relativism and imperialism-that solicit more diverse experiences and inquiries. Specifically, I utilise the metaphysical concepts of Alfred North Whitehead's 'actual occasion' alongside the 'many-sided-view' (anekānta-vāda) from the Jain tradition of South Asia to theorise a processual 'habitus of multiplicity' by which healthcare professionals, especially nurses, engage with and as a many-faceted event. As event, cultivating this 'habitus of multiplicity' is akin to a perceptive mode that: (1) anticipates the complex 'who' of each individual patient and provider as creative powers-in-process, (2) solicits novel inquiries between patients, providers, and health systems, including those previously 'unheard of' in dominant frameworks, and (3) promotes procedural efforts to mutually pluralise, rather than relativise, non-hierarchical care models.