When Southern Thai hemodialysis patients complete their treatment sessions, they perform traditional "wai" gestures toward dialysis machines—not toward medical staff. This practice exemplifies how patients transform medical technology into culturally meaningful relationships, challenging conventional narratives of technological alienation. Through ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Phatthalung Province, we documented experiences of eleven hemodialysis patients, eight healthcare providers, and eight family caregivers. Using narrative interviews and participant observation, we analyzed how patients negotiate biomedical requirements within regional cultural frameworks, employing cyborg anthropology as our theoretical lens. Three embedding strategies emerged. First, patients exercise linguistic sovereignty by using "Lang Tai" (kidney cleansing) rather than biomedical terminology, reinterpreting intervention through indigenous purification concepts. Second, they extend traditional "katanyu" ethics—obligations to recognize and reciprocate kindness—from human benefactors to life-sustaining machines, performing reverent gestures acknowledging technological agency. Third, they develop embodied technological literacy through "vascular consciousness" and "deflating balloon" metaphors, describing somatic transformation in culturally resonant terms. These practices contrast sharply with technological ambivalence documented across Western, Taiwanese, and African-American populations. Southern Thai patients exhibit positive technological subjectivity—not passive compliance, but active cultural agency maintaining both biomedical effectiveness and regional autonomy. Our findings demonstrate how collectivist value systems in Southeast Asian contexts enable distinctive technology adoption modes, with implications for culturally-responsive healthcare approaches across Asia-Pacific regions.

Authors:
Worachet Khieochan, Mahidol University, Thailand
Penchan Pradubmook Sherer, Mahidol University, Thailand
Pimpawun Boonmongkon, Mahidol University, Thailand

About the Presenter(s)
Worachet Khieochan, PhD Candidate in Medical and Public Health Social Sciences at Mahidol University, Thailand. Research interests: medical anthropology, cyborg studies, cultural embedding of technology, hemodialysis experiences in Southern Thailand.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

Bookmark