“We are all so different that it is just … normal.” Normalization practices in an academic hospital in the Netherlands |
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Authors: | Hannah Leyerzapf Petra Verdonk Halleh Ghorashi Tineke A Abma |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Medical Humanities, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, VU University Medical Center, Medical faculty F-Building, De Boelelaan 1089a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands;2. Department of Medical Humanities, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;3. Department of Sociology, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | Internationally, academic hospitals are giving increasing attention to diversity management. This paper sheds light on the actual praxis of cultural diversity management by professionals in workplace interactions. An ethnographic study in a Dutch academic hospital showed that normalization practices were obscuring diversity issues and obstructing inclusion of cultural minority professionals. The normalization of professionalism-as-neutral and equality-as-sameness informed the unequal distribution of privilege and disadvantage among professionals and left no room to question this distribution. Majority and minority professionals disciplined themselves and each other in (re)producing an ideal worker norm, essentialized difference and sameness, and explained away the structural hierarchy involved. To create space for cultural diversity in healthcare organizations in the Netherlands and beyond, we need to challenge normalization practices. |
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Keywords: | Cultural diversity Normalization Ideal worker norm Professionalism Reification of difference/sameness Privilege/disadvantage Academic hospitals |
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