Steinhoff Anne, Warren Rebecca, Carter David, Glynos Jason
Essex Business School, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.
Canberra Business School, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.
Sociol Health Illn. 2025 Jan;47(1):e13826. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13826. Epub 2024 Jul 29.
By focusing on the experiences of employees living with coeliac disease as evidenced in UK employment tribunal cases, this paper interrogates the way practices of exclusion are performed in legal and organisational contexts that purport to promote values of inclusion. In paying attention to how differences are constructed and negotiated, the paper unpacks the way organisational practices mobilise an array of workplace mechanisms to produce complex dynamics of exclusion. Applying Laclau and Mouffe's logics of equivalence and difference, we show how questionable impulses and practices emerge in a workplace environment characterised by unclarity and vagueness. One impulse, for example, involves privatising and individualising the condition of employees with coeliac disease, giving rise to patronising and stigmatising attitudes that can turn them into victims. However, we also identify workplace mechanisms countering these tendencies, which can underpin forms of collective support in the struggle for recognition. Our study thus contributes to the body of sociological literature that pays attention to health-related workplace injustices by challenging the purported promotion of health-based inclusion through a focus on tribunal cases, leading to suggestions for further research into the way medical conditions are theorised and 'lived' at work.
通过关注英国就业法庭案件中患有乳糜泻的员工的经历，本文审视了在旨在促进包容价值观的法律和组织背景下，排斥行为是如何实施的。在关注差异是如何构建和协商的过程中，本文剖析了组织实践如何调动一系列工作场所机制，以产生复杂的排斥动态。运用拉克劳和莫菲的等同逻辑与差异逻辑，我们展示了在一个以不清晰和模糊为特征的工作场所环境中，可疑的冲动和行为是如何出现的。例如，一种冲动涉及将患有乳糜泻的员工的病情私有化和个体化，从而产生居高临下和污名化的态度，可能使他们成为受害者。然而，我们也发现了对抗这些倾向的工作场所机制，这些机制可以为争取认可的斗争中的集体支持形式提供基础。因此，我们的研究通过关注法庭案件来挑战所谓的基于健康的包容促进，从而为关注与健康相关的工作场所不公正现象的社会学文献做出了贡献，进而为进一步研究医疗状况在工作中如何被理论化和“体验”提出了建议。
