Observations of Shipboard Illness Behavior

Work Discipline and the Sick Role in a Residential Work Setting

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5454796
AutoresMichael Bloor (University of Glasgow, autor de correspondencia)
Año2005
Volumen15
Número6
Páginas766-777
Fecha de publicación2005-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaQualitative Health Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1049-7323 • E-ISSN: 1552-7557
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1049732305276735
PMID15961874
OpenAlexW2110029684
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas16

In this article, the author reports on a small-scale ethnographic study of illness behavior in a residential work setting, a large merchant cargo ship with a multinational crew. Although parallels with previous observational work on illness behavior in residential settings (where illnesses result in treatment only if there is a break in accommodation to symptoms) exist, it is clear that type of setting is pivotal in shaping illness careers. Here, accommodation to symptoms was overlain by the economic imperative to keep the ship functioning: Management feared that the right to the sick role would allow 'malingering,' whereas workers feared adoption of the sick role would exclude them from employment. In the latter case, the worker might experience illness or disability in a manner parallel to a Marxist analysis of the product of workers'labor: as an alien object of control and oppression, grounds for his or her removal from the workforce

Accommodation · Operations management · Parallels · Physical therapy · Political science · Sick leave · Workforce · Emotional Labor in Professions · Employment and Welfare Studies · Law · Medicine · Occupational Health and Safety Research · Psychology