Give yourself grace

Drawing on ethnographic research in a South African care facility, this editorial explores grace as both an analytical concept and practical resource for navigating difficult encounters in end‐of‐life care settings. The author demonstrates how staff and residents use grace — understood as temporary acceptance rather than moral absolution — to manage racial tensions, workplace adversity and ethical uncertainty. Grace functions as a survival strategy that enables coexistence across divides without requiring affection or approval. The piece argues that grace offers anthropologists and care practitioners a framework for understanding how people cope with structural violence and interpersonal conflict in institutional settings.