Time to care? The temporal structuring of care work
通过对家庭护理单位的案例研究，探讨护理工作的时间结构如何被组织控制，揭示正式控制工具与护理工作必要时间条件之间的内在矛盾，以及非管理人员如何有时能克服这些矛盾。
Organizations exert control over workers’ time-use; some more than others. This paper contributes to studies of temporal structuring with a case study of a home care unit, where care workers’ time-use is planned down to the minute. Drawing on feminist theorizations of time, this study problematizes the ‘time’ that is assumed to be structured through temporal structuring. The question addressed is: how, and by whom, is care work temporally structured, and what internal contradictions arise in this process? Through the notion of process time ( Davies, 1994 ), a temporality necessary for certain forms of care work, the study highlights internal contradictions between the necessary conditions for care work, and the actually existing temporal structures provided by formal control tools. Ethnographic materials are presented that show how nonmanagerial staff are sometimes able to overcome these contradictions. This finding forms the basis for an immanent critique of professional care organizations, with practical and political implications.