‘We mustn’t judge people ... but’: staff dilemmas in dealing with racial harassment amongst hospice service users

Abstract

Increasing attention is being given to the challenging of racism and racial harassment in health care organisations. Very little, however, is known about anti-discriminatory practice in the health services, or how professionals give meaning to`race' in their work with service users. This paper examines these issues through representations of the`dilemmas' that were talked about by hospice staff in managing incidents of racial harassment amongst service users. By addressing the micro-interactional dynamics of this work, specific attention is given to representations of the cognitive and emotional dimensions of anti-discriminatory practice: that is, how professionals talk about how they think and feel in working with, and sometimes attempting to challenge, racist service users. The paper suggests that the recognition and exploration of staff dilemmas in dealing with racism has much to contribute to the analysis of professional roles, values and expectations, while also having implications for policy and service development.

Some of our concepts are missing: reflections on the absence of a sociology of organisations in Sociology of Health and Illness

“…He cites the recent NHS Plan and the introduction of clinical governance -phenomena that in an earlier era sociologists would perhaps have been content to leave to the policy analysts or to subsume under more abstract discussions of medical dominance. Recent issues of the Journal have begun to explore the significance of new organisational forms and policy developments (see, for example, Milewa et al 1999, Carpenter 2000, Gunaratnam 2001, Harrison and Dowswell 2002, Hartley 2002, Whittock et al 2002 7 . It is notable too that textbooks, in the late 80s and early 1990s devoid of mention of matters of health care organisation and hospitals, are today also revisiting questions of policy change and the organisation of services (Nettleton 1995: chapters 8 and 9; Annandale 1998: part 3; Clarke 2001: chapter 9).…”

“…3 The power of this is only now being more broadly acknowledged -with the rediscovery, for example, of Menzies (1960), the focus on emotions, and publications such as, for example, Obholzer and Roberts (1994). For a recent work in the Journal focusing on organisation, emotions and racial harassment, and demonstrating some of the potential here, see Gunaratnam (2001). 4 The work of Stacey and her colleagues, firmly located in a sociology department, was itself an important exception, managing to respond to the call for recommendations for practical organisational change, but at the same time to set these in a wider context.…”

Talking about end-of-life care: the perspectives of older South Asians living in East London

“…Health professionals providing care in multicultural environments have been shown to experience several dilemmas, such as ambivalence, ignorance or uncertainties (Gunaratnam, 2001;Vydelingum, 2006) due to their lack of cross-cultural end-of-life care knowledge and skills (Diver, 2003;Richardson et al, 2006). In such situations, health professionals may adopt a 'culturally distant position' .…”

“…Some argue that there is a lack of 'cultural transferability' in existing Western palliative service models which may make them unacceptable to some non-western people (Gunaratnam, 2001). In addition to this, language barriers Jack et al, 2001) may be a barrier to access to reliable information about end-of-life care services, such as hospice and cancer care facilities (Elkan et al, 2007;Randhawa and Owens, 2004).…”

Negotiating Professional and Social Voices in Research Principles and Practice

“…A final complication to this set of basic issues is the subject matter to be explored in this particular research. Within the current racialised and gendered context of health and social care (Gunaratnam, 2001;Lewis, 2000), researching and talking about gender and ethnicity and any impact this might have on working relationships and identities is rendered problematic. The subject matter of such research potentially provokes anxiety for participants, particularly if they are members of the dominant social group within racialised and gendered social relations (hooks, 1992).…”