Constructing a professional identity as an in-home carer

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which foreign live-in carers are able to construct agentive identities which counteract negative discourses regarding care work, sex and nationality.

Design/methodology/approach

Interviews with women working as carers in Bologna form the basis of this research which focuses on “small stories”. Using positioning analysis, both the immediate context where the narrative takes place and the wider societal discourses being referenced are examined. Subsequently, common recurrent discourses related to being a foreign carer in Italy are identified.

Findings

The interviewees make strategic use of prevailing negative discourses to construct counter narratives to avoid being positioned as low-skilled workers and to permit them to reject negative stereotypes of what it means to be a carer. In addition, more positive identities are constructed.

Practical implications

These findings suggest that a sociolinguistic approach can help towards a better understanding of the lived-experiences of foreign care workers, as it can reveal aspects of carers’ lives which do not easily fit into the categories which are often the focus of larger-scale, thematic studies.

Originality/value

This paper combines an analysis of content together with an analysis of the construction of narrative to present a more complete picture of the reality of working as a carer today.

Citation

Blundell, C.J. (2021), "Constructing a professional identity as an in-home carer", Working with Older People, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 202-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/WWOP-06-2021-0033