Making body work sequences visible: an ethnographic study of acute orthopaedic hospital wards

Backhouse, Tamara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8194-4174, Hammond, Simon P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0473-3610, Cross, Jane L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7003-1916, Lambert, Nigel, Varley, Anna, Penhale, Bridget ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8487-0606, Fox, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9480-5704 and Poland, Fiona ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0003-6911 (2020) Making body work sequences visible: an ethnographic study of acute orthopaedic hospital wards. Sociology of Health & Illness, 42 (5). pp. 1139-1154. ISSN 0141-9889

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Abstract

Within health and social care, academic attention is increasingly paid to understanding the nature and centrality of body work. Relatively little is known about how and where body work specifically fits into the wider work relations that produce it in healthcare settings. We draw on ethnographic observations of staff practice in three National Health Service acute hospital wards in the United Kingdom to make visible the micro-processes of patient care sequences including both body work and the work contextualising and supporting it. Our data, produced in 2015, show body work interactions in acute care to be critically embedded within a context of initiating, preparing, moving and restoring and proceeding. Shades of privacy and objectification of the body are present throughout these sequences. While accomplishing tasks away from the physical body, staff members must also maintain physical and cognitive work focussed on producing body work. Thus, patient care is necessarily complex, requiring much staff time and energy to deliver it. We argue that by making visible the micro-processes that hospital patient care depends on, including both body work and the work sequences supporting it, the complex physical and cognitive workload required to deliver care can be better recognised. (A virtual version of this abstract is available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_979cmCmR9rLrKuD7z0ycA).

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: bodies,care,embodiment,body work,care,ethnography,hospitals,objectification,observation
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Health Sciences
Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Dementia & Complexity in Later Life
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Research on Children and Families
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Mental Health
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Institute for Volunteering Research
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Population Health
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 03 Mar 2020 09:11
Last Modified: 19 Oct 2023 02:39
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/74410
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13085

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