Emplaced professional identities: Restructuring and the contested space of town nursing skill

Abstract:  Health sector restructuring influences most health professionals, and those working in small town hospitals in New Zealand have been affected in particular ways. This paper focuses on the shift in skill requirement for nurses as a result of the loss of surgical services and the downsizing of a town hospital. The shift in nursing skill was contested by nurses who perceived it to be an assault on their skilled professional identities. However the majority of the nurses acquiesced and remained at the town hospital. Rather than read this acquiescence as passivity and victimization on the part of the nurses, their narratives suggest a more complex interpretation which prompts an exploration of the 'investments' that nurses may have in at least temporarily acquiescing. The interdependent relationship between profession and place in which neither profession nor place appear to operate independently in the constitution of identity, is highlighted. Understanding professional identities as emplaced in this way, provides a way of beginning to make sense of how people negotiate, contest, accept or reject change at work in small towns.