Conviviality in the Clinic: Exploring the Affective Dynamics of Daktar s’ Healthcare Provision in Delhi

Clinical encounters in India are often marked by suspicion between patients and practitioners. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the affective environments of clinics run by unlicensed medical practitioners—or daktars (doctors)—in Delhi, outlining ‘conviviality’ as a feature of care in these settings. Dismissed as ‘quacks’ by elites, daktars are popular sources of healthcare for the city’s poor, with whom they are entangled in neighbourly relations. Drawing on ethnographic research, the paper examines how conviviality in the clinic is shaped by material conditions and relational effort. It highlights how conviviality attenuates tensions underpinning clinical encounters, while acknowledging its limits. Analysing daktars’ practices, it posits conviviality as both an affective outcome of their clinical work and the condition of possibility for emotions like trust to emerge. Moving beyond negative framings of ‘mistrust’ within clinical settings in India, the paper foregrounds conviviality as a key aspect of daktars’ healthcare provision.