Gendered Agency and Emotions in the Field of Care Work

This article examines the gendered effects of the intensification of public sector care work due to neoliberal reforms. It draws on an interview study of Finnish social and healthcare workers to argue that the expectations towards men and women in the reorganized field of care work are different, especially in the case of their emotional involvement in care practices. The article develops a conceptual framework based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice and its feminist developments. We discuss caring as gendered, habitual and emotional work and as a lived social relationship that produces different states of autonomy and dependency for women and men. Our study finds that women in particular fa…

Living on a knife’s edge: Temporal conflicts in welfare service work

This article considers the temporal variations of agency from the point of view of social and health care workers’ experiences and the social structures and practices of the contemporary public service sector. It is based on an interview study of 24 Finnish welfare service workers. The results show that the public service sector increasingly operates according to market principles and an economic-rationalistic framing of time, contrary to the relational understanding of time in care practices. To maintain their sense of self as skilled professionals, workers actively reassess and adjust their identities according to the exigencies of working life, but not without difficulties. The results …

Introduction

Digital technologies shape our embodied lives and affect our knowledge of the self and the world. The introductory chapter of the book presents the state of the art in the research on digitalisation of health and social care work, with a focus on care for older people. In ageing societies, understanding what it takes to introduce and use digital technologies can pave the way to a successful, sustainable, and equally accessible system of social care and healthcare provision for older people. The chapter discusses some of the limitations in the present discussion and how the book at hand aims to address these gaps. The chapter proposes that living in an increasingly digitalised world requires…

A spatial-temporal, intersectional and institutional approach to interpersonal violence

Hoivatyön ajalliset kehykset ja rytmiristiriidat

Artikkelissa kysytään, miten ajallisten kehysten muutokset vaikuttavat terveydenhuollon ja sosiaalialan hoivatyöntekijöiden toimijuuteen. Ajallisten orientaatioiden ja toimijuuden välisiä suhteita analysoidaan inhimillisen toiminnan ajallisia ulottuvuuksia koskevien sosiologisten teorioiden, hoivatyön käytäntöjen ja hoivatyöntekijöiden kertomien kokemusten näkökulmasta. Aineistona on 25 sosiaalialan ja terveydenhuollon työntekijöiden teemahaastattelua. Haastateltavien kertomukset kiireen lisääntymisestä ja jatkuvasta rutiinien rikkoutumisesta ovat aineistossa hyvin yleisiä. Hyvinvointivaltion uudelleenorganisoinnin tuloksena vahvistunut taloudellis-hallinnollinen aikakehys edellyttää hoivat…

Feminism, Embodied Experience and Recognition: An Interview with Lois McNay

Lois McNay is Professor of the Theory of Politics at Oxford University, United Kingdom. In addition to many articles and book chapters her work includes Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender and the...

Living on a knife's edge: Temporal conflicts in welfare service work

This article considers the temporal variations of social and health care workers’ agency from the point of view of the social structures and practices of the contemporary Finnish public service sector. It finds that the contemporary Finnish public sector increasingly operates according to market principles and economic framing of time, contrary to the relational understanding of time in care practices. To maintain their sense of self as skilled professionals, workers actively reassess and adjust their identities according to the exigencies of the contemporary working life, but not without difficulties. The results of the interview study reflect the intuitive, habitual and innovative nature …

Doing gendered and (dis)embodied work. Care work in the context of medico-managerial welfare state

Whether and how technology-driven managerial reforms affect the field of human service work is a timely question for social sciences. In an increasingly technology-assisted working-life, material conditions such as one’s age and gender may be losing their significance as signifiers of professional identity. Welfare service work is traditionally understood as feminine work that comprises of embodied, situational and social practices of care work. Over the past few decades, public management reforms have called for reassessment of welfare service workers’ occupational skills through practices of medico-managerial service management and occupational accountability. As a result, workers technic…

Habitus and care : investigating welfare service workers' agency

Hedelmöityshoitolakiesitys ja sosiaalinen kansalaisuus : inkluusion ja ekskluusion politiikat

Naiseus resurssina hyvinvointityössä

[Johdantoa] Sukupuoli on keskeinen työelämää organisoiva tekijä. Tästä huolimatta tulemme harvoin ajatelleeksi sukupuolen merkitystä arkisissa työelämän käytännöissä, toiminnassamme, puheissamme ja käytöksessämme. Sukupuolen merkitys työelämää järjestävänä elementtinä vaihtelee työelämän kentältä toiselle eikä siitä useinkaan haluta puhua suoraan. nonPeerReviewed

Säröt hyvinvointityön kertomuksessa

Asiakasturvallisuus vanhuspalveluissa

Artikkelissa analysoidaan asiakasturvallisuuden määrittymistä vanhuspalveluita koskevissa politiikka-asiakirjoissa. Asiakasturvallisuutta lähestytään kysymyksenä yhteiskunnallisesta sekä asiakassuhteissa toteutuvasta luottamuksesta. Artikkelissa kysytään, miten asiakasturvallisuus määrittyy asiakirjoissa ja mitä se tarkoittaa luottamuksen näkökulmasta. Tulosten mukaan asiakasturvallisuuden sisältö ja merkitys suhteessa potilasturvallisuuden käsitteeseen on vanhuspalveluissa vasta jäsentymässä. Asiakasturvallisuus määrittyy asiakirjoissa etenkin palveluiden tarjoajien vastuuna turvallisuuskulttuurin kehittämisestä sekä pyrkimyksenä ikääntyneiden asumisen ja asuinympäristön kehittämiseen tekn…

Reconstructing Care Professionalism in Finland

The public sector plays a special role in the Nordic welfare states through its commitment to the principle of universalism, and in relation to social security and publicly funded services in education, health and care (Rostgaard 2002). In the 21st century, the impact of economic austerity on public resources and a rapid aging of the population have forced welfare states to undergo an extreme reform. In Finland, the reform has meant streamlining the state, restraining public expenditure and recalibrating the universalistic ideals behind the Nordic welfare state model, as well as introducing new management models (Pollitt & Bouckaert 2011). The managerial reforms implemented in Finland have …

Electronic Health Records reshaping the socio-technical practices in Long-Term Care of older persons

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in Long-Term Care (LTC) of older persons are expected to improve resident-centered care by reducing ambiguities in information coordination between LTC workers and organisations. While there are research findings concerning such intended outcomes, we are interested in analysing what sort of other, possibly unanticipated outcomes the use of EHRs in LTC may produce. We argue that the scrutiny of EHRs in LTC requires an understanding of their implementation as socio-technical processes, whereby EHRs are perceived as performative artifacts of LTC rather than technological tools or passive objects. While EHRs have been extensively studied in health-care settings,…

Sense of belonging in a digitalised care work community

This chapter uses the theoretical framework of sense of belonging to explore how eldercare workers from Finnish service housing units for older people describe the use of digital devices and applications in their work and the work practices that relate to their sense of belonging. The study is based on interview data (n = 25) that was collected in 2018 for a study on digitalisation of eldercare. The chapter asks: what does a sense of belonging mean for care workers’ agency in a digital era? The analysis concentrates especially on the practices of belonging and how they are enacted in a digitalised work environment. The chapter proposes that in the digital era, a sense of belonging is partic…

From Embodied to Disembodied Practices of Care: Discussing Welfare State Transformation in Finland

Julkisen palvelun tehostamisen uudet opit : esittelyssä lean-ajattelu

Common sense put to work : The capitalisation of affects in the introduction of a Lean management model to healthcare professionals

This article investigates how Lean model is introduced in a management training course targeted at healthcare professionals in Finland. Lean management originated in the Japanese car industry; since the 1990s it has become a key management doctrine for healthcare reform in Western welfare states. Drawing on ethnographic research on a two-day Lean management training course in 2019, and by applying the analytical lenses of affects and sociomateriality, the article illustrates how Lean is made attractive to healthcare professionals. The article results that Lean training serves as an example of complex mechanism of biocapitalist production in which people’s cognition, feelings, sensitivities …

Group‐based instant messaging in Finnish residential elder care work : taming the technology or vice versa?

As new communication technologies become embedded in care work, there is a need to understand how they affect its temporal order. This article analyses group-based mobile instant messaging (IM) in residential elder care work in Finland. The article asks (i) how care workers use group-based messaging for work; and (ii) how they negotiate the rules for its use. Theoretically, the article draws on science and technology studies focusing on ‘taming’ and ‘unleashing’ (Pols, 2017), and temporality (Wajcman, 2008). Analysis is based on a qualitative interview study of care workers and nurses (n = 25) conducted in 2018. The results showed how the time-shifting functionality of IM allows employees t…

Biologinen sosiaalisen mallina. Valintoja uuden hedelmöityshoitolain kentällä.

Tarkastelen artikkelissa hedelmöityshoitoja koskevan lakiprosessin aikaista kamppailua, joka realisoitui Laiksi hedelmöityshoidoista (1237/2006). Analysoin tarkemmin lain viidettä pykälää (1237/2006, 5§) sekä siitä lakiesityksessä HE 3/2006 esitettyjä perusteluja. Pykälän mukaan lääkärin tulee valita sukusolujen luovuttajista hoitoa saavan parin osapuolia muistuttavat henkilöt, sillä lapsen tulee saada muistuttaa myös sosiaalista vanhempaansa. Analysoin lain viidennen pykälän sisältämiä vanhempien ja lapsen asemaa koskevia lausumia modaalisuusanalyyttisesti käyttäen apuna semioottista neliötä. Neliön kautta ilmennän hoitoihin osallistuvien positioiden modaalista astevaihtelua, joka osoittaa…

Vanhustyön digitalisaatio : työntekijät teknologian kehittäjiksi

Akateeminen yleisteos arkisesta ja ajankohtaisesta hoivapolitiikasta (Kirja-arvio)

Kirja-arvio teoksesta Anttonen, Anneli, Valokivi, Heli & Zechner, Minna (toim.) Hoiva – Tutkimus, politiikka ja arki. Vastapaino, Tampere, 298 s. nonPeerReviewed

Professionalism in contemporary societies

Professions represent an essential feature of modern societies by maintaining core societal values and engaging in problem-solving in areas such as health, law and education. However, during the last decades the appeal of professionalism, associated with autonomy, discretion and a privileged status, has diffused greatly in the field of service work. Professionalism now seems to be everywhere while the ‘classic professions’ such as medicine and the juridical profession are confronted with serious structural changes. As a research field, the sociology of professions opens up a perspective on work and social change across micro, meso and macro levels, looking for the nexus between knowledge an…

From Embodied to Disembodied Professionalism? Discussing the Implications of Medico-Managerial Management in Welfare Service Work

Welfare service work is traditionally understood to comprise embodied, situational and social practices of care that are central to a worker’s professional self-image. Over the past few decades, public management reforms have called for reassessment of welfare service workers’ professional accountability through practices of medico-managerial service management. These practices promote the production of transparency and accountability in welfare services work through checking-based trust and disembodied professional practices. This article argues that the changes in the nature of trust toward welfare service professionals have implications for care work cultures and workers’ professional ag…

Vanhustyö ja teknologia. Jyväskylän yliopiston vanhustyön kyselytutkimus 2019 : Katsaus tutkimusaineistoon

Jyväskylän yliopiston vanhustyön kyselytutkimuksessa kerätään tietoa vanhus- ja hoivatyön teknologisoitumista sekä työntekijöistä, työn luonteesta ja työoloista vuosina 2019−2025. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on saada ajantasainen kuva teknologisten laitteiden ja palveluiden käytöstä vanhuspalveluissa ja hoivatyössä sekä selvittää digiteknologioiden käytön merkityksiä ja yhteyksiä työoloihin ja päivittäisiin työrutiineihin sekä hoivasuhteisiin. Kyselytutkimus on osa Ikääntymisen ja hoivan tutkimuksen huippuyksikön (CoE AgeCare) tutkimustoimintaa. Kysely toteutettiin ensimmäisen kerran huhtikuussa 2019, jolloin kyselyyn saatiin 6 903 vastausta. Vastaajista 3 758 liittyi vastaajapaneeliin. Kyselyn…

Eldercare work and technology. 2019 University of Jyväskylä survey study on eldercare work : Overview of survey data

University of Jyväskylä has launched a survey study on eldercare work aimed to obtain information on 1) employees working with services for older people, 2) the nature of the work and working conditions in services for older people and 3) a current view of the use of technology in services for older people. The goal is to examine how the use of digital technologies is linked to working conditions, daily work routines and care relationships and to monitor the nature of care work and its digitalisation during 2019-2025. The first baseline survey was conducted on April 2019 resulting with 6 903 answers and of the respondents, 3,758 joined the respondent panel. The 2019 survey data shows that i…