Captured by Care: An Institutional Ethnography on the Work of Being in a Rehabilitation Process in Norway

The Norwegian rehabilitation policies and new public management reforms share some features and are divided by others. The features that divide them are so contradictory that they create difficulties for people who are in a process of rehabilitation. Having studied the everyday life of people being in a process of rehabilitation, I argue that the continuous change in organizational structures in general makes the processes hard to endure for service users, specifically the reforms characterized by neoliberalism, because they, to a large extent, contradict the holistic rehabilitation ideology. This further illuminates the paradox that the greater and more complicated the functional impairments are, the more work related to the rehabilitation process a person must do, and by extension, the greater the risk of deprivation

Planning individually? Spotting international welfare trends in the field of rehabilitation in Norway

International welfare trends are sweeping across the western world and have gained a lot of attention from researchers. However, few contributions have demonstrated the practical effects of these trends. This article will illustrate this using the individual plan as a case showing that some unintended forms of use can be regarded as traces of international welfare policy trends, and are not in line with the original ideologically based intentions

"Bundet av bistand" : en institusjonell etnografi om organisering av rehabiliteringsprosesser

Avhandling (Ph.D.) – Universitetet i Nordland, 201

Negotiating Identities and Power : Adolescent Motherhood and Child Marriage in Central Malawi.

Introduction: despite universal efforts, child marriages still occur worldwide. However, not all child marriage unions last, and little is known about how such marriages end. Most critically, there is little information on what happens to young mothers when child marriage unions dissolve. This paper explores the experiences of adolescent mothers who were in child marriages in the cultural context of central Malawi. Methodology: using qualitative methods, data was collected in two districts in central Malawi. One focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted with key community members (n=14) and three FGD, guided by an unstandardized interview guide, were conducted with adolescent mothers aged 15-22 years (n=15). The FGD with adolescent mothers were conducted in three groups, ranging from three to nine participants per group. In addition to this, a key informant interview was conducted with a community leader who is traditionally recognized as paramount chief (n=1). The data was analysed using a content analysis. The study applied the concept of ‘doing gender’ by West and Zimmerman (1987) in the analysis. Results: what emerged from the data is that adolescent mothers embodied fragmented identities that are changing over time given the influence of life events. Amid different combinations of roles, several identities were observed: mother, wife, young, adolescent, girl, married, unmarried, victim of child marriage, survivor of child marriage, unemployed, employed, re-enrolled student, and school dropout. While these identities changed, gender did not, thus the changing identifications provided displays for ‘doing gender’ under a diverse set of subjectivities. Expressions of power at the micro-level were demonstrated by adolescent mothers through ‘resilience vs. perseverance’. Conclusions: the study highlights that cultural sensitivity and responsiveness by traditional leaders, such as the chief, play a role in the empowering revisions of one’s identity by championing liberating life events through the termination of child marriage or access to girls’ education regardless of resistance.publishedVersio

Romanian Roma : An Institutional Ethnography of Labour Market Exclusion

Roma individuals are struggling to access the formal labour market in Romania. Previous research occupied with this issue has traditionally been dominated by quantitative studies of socio-economic indicators that cling to the characteristics of the ethnic group. The study presented here, however, uses institutional ethnography as a method of social inquiry to demonstrate that this issue needs to be studied from a bottom-up perspective. The article illustrates that there are factors connected to how the system of occupational integration operates that must be taken into consideration in order to explain the difficulties Roma individuals face when trying to enter the labour market in Romania. We argue that these structural barriers create and reinforce processes of minoritising that increase marginalization and discrimination and thereby hinder work inclusion for Roma individuals

Introduction to the special issue on Institutional Ethnography and Comparative Social Work

Editoria

Negotiating identities and power : adolescent motherhood and child marriage in central Malawi

Introduction: despite universal efforts, child marriages still occur worldwide. However, not all child marriage unions last, and little is known about how such marriages end. Most critically, there is little information on what happens to young mothers when child marriage unions dissolve. This paper explores the experiences of adolescent mothers who were in child marriages in the cultural context of central Malawi. Methodology: using qualitative methods, data was collected in two districts in central Malawi. One focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted with key community members (n=14) and three FGD, guided by an unstandardized interview guide, were conducted with adolescent mothers aged 15-22 years (n=15). The FGD with adolescent mothers were conducted in three groups, ranging from three to nine participants per group. In addition to this, a key informant interview was conducted with a community leader who is traditionally recognized as paramount chief (n=1). The data was analysed using a content analysis. The study applied the concept of ‘doing gender’ by West and Zimmerman (1987) in the analysis. Results: what emerged from the data is that adolescent mothers embodied fragmented identities that are changing over time given the influence of life events. Amid different combinations of roles, several identities were observed: mother, wife, young, adolescent, girl, married, unmarried, victim of child marriage, survivor of child marriage, unemployed, employed, re-enrolled student, and school dropout. While these identities changed, gender did not, thus the changing identifications provided displays for ‘doing gender’ under a diverse set of subjectivities. Expressions of power at the micro-level were demonstrated by adolescent mothers through ‘resilience vs. perseverance’. Conclusions: the study highlights that cultural sensitivity and responsiveness by traditional leaders, such as the chief, play a role in the empowering revisions of one’s identity by championing liberating life events through the termination of child marriage or access to girls’ education regardless of resistance

Special issue on “Institutional Ethnography and Comparative Social Work”

Call for paper

Trøblete overganger i et aldersdelt hjelpeapparat

Author's accepted version (postprint)

The shifting roles of employers : At the intersection of employment and social work : A case study from Norway

publishedVersio