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Boundary Management, Interplexity & Nostalgia: Managing Marginal Identities in Public Health Working

McMurray, R.; Pullen, A.

Authors

R. McMurray

A. Pullen



Abstract

This article explores identity dynamics in public health working at the level of the institutional identity ascribed to public health professionals, and the identity work that public health workers perform. Drawing on focus group research with school nurses and community midwives in England, the article identifies two important but neglected areas for interrogating public health worker's identity work: boundary management and interplexity. We suggest that school nurses and community midwives do identity work from marginal positions: positions that exist in the shadow of bio-medicine, but from which new strands of identity are performed in spaces of micro-emancipation. However, while new strands of identity are revealed through individual performance, the very marginality of these professionals in terms of institutional, conceptual and physical resources are shown to prevent development of sustainable public health discourses. On this basis, we suggest that marginal professions might seek self-protection from dominance in nostalgia for modernity.

Citation

McMurray, R., & Pullen, A. (2008). Boundary Management, Interplexity & Nostalgia: Managing Marginal Identities in Public Health Working. International Journal of Public Administration, 31(9), 1058-1078. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900690801924231

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 2008
Deposit Date Oct 1, 2010
Journal International Journal of Public Administration
Print ISSN 0190-0692
Electronic ISSN 1532-4265
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 31
Issue 9
Pages 1058-1078
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/01900690801924231
Keywords Identity, Nursing, Boundary management, Interplexity, Nostalgia.