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PurposeThe purpose of this article is to critically examine Joan Acker's notion of inequality regimes by applying it to the case of global nurse care chains (GNCCs). The article examines the organisational practices of GNCCs and how inequality barriers are practiced and legitimised.Design/methodology/approachThe article is based on qualitative interviews with different institutional representatives involved in Filipino nurse recruitment to Finland (N = 25), recruited Filipino nurses (N = 20) and Filipino nurses working in Finland (N = 9).FindingsThe article demonstrates different organisational practices through which inequality regimes are created and sustained. These include the racialised construction of the Philippines as situated in the global periphery and functioning as a resource of labour for the global core and the Filipino nurse as innately more caring. The inequalities are legitimised through deskilling in which the nurses' command of Finnish language is a key form of justification. Filipino nurses' precarious legal status renders them compliant workers from an organisational perspective and vulnerable workers who fear to claim their rights as workers.Practical implicationsBy discussing barriers to inequality, the article illustrates how inequalities in diverse workplaces and the undervaluing of nurse work could be addressed.Originality/valueThe article uniquely applies Acker's inequality regimes to the study of GNCCs. It argues that the concept of inequality regimes would benefit from developing it towards a global context.

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This chapter starts with a metaphorical story called “Building a Health Village.” The story was created by the first author and is based on empirical data collected between 2018 and 2019. The data was acquired through formal interviews and two Collaborative Story Craft workshops with health care practitioners and other stakeholders co-creating a digital service platform. The story also draws from informal conversations told to the first author over a period of 15 years in a Nordic welfare state. During this time, she has navigated various social worlds as an immigrant, student, cleaner, teacher, academic researcher, business co-founder, and parent. Both authors applied their work as craft mindset to build questions for those interpreting the story.The aim of the chapter is to emphasise that stories and narrations change and transform as individuals continuously make sense of their social and material surroundings. Stories are also free floating as they narrate events to different audiences. Like sensemaking and craftwork, narrating and telling stories to make sense of embodied lived experiences never ends or stops cleanly. Rather, stories enter new cycles of purpose and possibilities from different positions, depending on the context and the audience.

This chapter closes with the acknowledgement of mentors and the hero/heroine within us. With a work as craft mindset, Collaborative Storytelling seeks to frame individual stories within wider, intertwined systems of narratives. The opportunity to craft one’s story is possible for all of us individually. And yet, for collective change to happen, an exchange of stories of all those invested can ignite a mosaic of heroes and mentors that is not reliant on a single hero’s story.Collaborative Storytelling brings in a different type of power that benefits a wider system of narratives. Collective power is not only shared, it is multiplied.