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.