"...and then I fall on the client." Rationalization and the Endangerment of Double Subjectivity in Interactive Mobile Elder Work

The paper deals with recent tendencies in mobile elder care in Austria. Based on the approach of "interactive work," the peculiarities of direct person-oriented service work are elaborated as work with/at a subject. This contains a double subjectivity, ie, the subjectivity of the care work...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:ÖZS. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie 2004-01, Vol.29 (2), p.60-76
Main Author: Krenn, Manfred
Format: Article
Language:ger
Subjects:
Austria
Caregivers
Client Relations
Elderly
Home Health Care
Subjectivity
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The paper deals with recent tendencies in mobile elder care in Austria. Based on the approach of "interactive work," the peculiarities of direct person-oriented service work are elaborated as work with/at a subject. This contains a double subjectivity, ie, the subjectivity of the care worker & the client in the work process. On the basis of qualitative empirical results, the contribution describes in a second step the representation of this double subjectivity in professional identities of employees. The consequences for work in mobile elder care of recent tendencies toward economization & especially the resulted work strains for the employees are the focus of the third part. Economization & standardization are seen as inadequate strategies because they ignore the double subjectivity of work in mobile elder care. Such cost-efficiency measures endanger the health stability of the workforce as well as the quality of service work & put the client in the role of an object. The closing remarks try to draw some conclusions on the resulting dangers of the analyzed tendencies for "help cultures" in mobile elder care. 18 References. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:1011-0070