Church Is Important to Our Clients

Autonomy, Community, and Religious Expression within a Long-term Care Organization

Bibliographic Data

ID2365614
AuthorsLatonya Trotter (0000-0002-8053-0882, Vanderbilt University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume49
Issue5
Pages638-665
Publication date2020-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary Ethnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0891-2416 • E-ISSN: 1552-5414
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0891241620922882
OpenAlexW3033605655
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited37

Autonomy and selfhood are primary concerns for scholars of long-term care. Previous work has shown how organizational routines threaten client autonomy and disrupt access to the material and symbolic resources that ground the biography of the self. In this article, I examine how a group of African-American older adults within an adult day service center ameliorated these threats through religious expression. In most health care settings, religion is delivered as an individual, clinical resource. At this site, religion and recreation became intertwined such that religion became a participatory resource that affirmed client membership to a community beyond the walls of the organization. However, as an institutionally provided resource, religion was delivered through work routines that constrained which versions of community to which clients could belong. I conclude by considering the implications for the expanding universe of long-term care organizations tasked with the maintenance of the body as well as the continuity of the self

Autonomy · Business · Community organization · Political science · Public relations · Recreation · Religious organization · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology

Tools

Open DOI