TY - JOUR
T1 - The challenges of coeliac disease at work
T2 - A contestation of the politics of inclusion
AU - Steinhoff, Anne
AU - Warren, Rebecca
AU - Carter, David
AU - Glynos, Jason
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness.
Funding Information:
We thank our anonymous reviewers for the supportive and invaluable feedback. Various working paper versions of this article were discussed at workshops and conferences including the Critical Management Studies division at the Academy of Management and the Centre for Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex. We are grateful to all the individuals at those sessions who provided comments that enabled us to develop the manuscript further. The research received funding from the University of Essex Social Sciences Doctoral Scholarship which made this research possible.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness.
PY - 2025/1
Y1 - 2025/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - coeliac disease
KW - exclusion
KW - inclusion
KW - logics of equivalence
KW - othering
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85200057998&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1467-9566.13826
DO - 10.1111/1467-9566.13826
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85200057998
SN - 0141-9889
VL - 47
SP - 1
EP - 19
JO - Sociology of Health and Illness
JF - Sociology of Health and Illness
IS - 1
M1 - e13826
ER -