IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v245y2020ics027795361930663x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who are Clive's friends? Latent sociality in the emergency department

Author

Listed:
  • Salhi, Bisan A.

Abstract

In the absence of social services and robust social networks, staff working at social service institutions serve as a significant element of sociality in the lives of a segment of people experiencing homelessness. Relationships forged within these institutions prove to be avenues of emotional support and material resources that facilitate the survival of some homeless people. To illustrate this point, this article draws on data collected over the course of 18 months between July 2014 and December 2016. I present an ethnographic case study of an elderly homeless man, Clive, who was labeled a “super-utilizer” of an Emergency Department (ED) in Atlanta, Georgia. This article explores how Clive's relationships with ED staff transcended professional obligations and enabled his survival during his estrangement from friends and family. I demonstrate that the ED, and hospitals in general, are better understood as human infrastructures that perform functions in excess of providing biomedical services. This sociality, I argue, is key to understanding how the most vulnerable individuals survive in the context of increasing social abandonment.

Suggested Citation

  • Salhi, Bisan A., 2020. "Who are Clive's friends? Latent sociality in the emergency department," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:245:y:2020:i:c:s027795361930663x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361930663X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112668?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van der Geest, Sjaak & Finkler, Kaja, 2004. "Hospital ethnography: introduction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(10), pages 1995-2001, November.
    2. Gansel, Yannis & Danet, François & Rauscher, Catherine, 2010. "Long-stay inpatients in short-term emergency units in France: A case study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 501-508, February.
    3. Pantell, M. & Rehkopf, D. & Jutte, D. & Syme, S.L. & Balmes, J. & Adler, N., 2013. "Social isolation: A predictor of mortality comparable to traditional clinical risk factors," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 103(11), pages 2056-2062.
    4. Lee, Albert & Lau, Fei-Lung & Hazlett, Clarke B. & Kam, Chak-Wah & Wong, Patrick & Wong, Tai-Wai & Chow, Susan, 2000. "Factors associated with non-urgent utilization of Accident and Emergency services: a case-control study in Hong Kong," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1075-1085, October.
    5. Abraham, Laurie Kaye & Ansell, MD, David A., 2019. "Mama Might Be Better Off Dead," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226623702, December.
    6. Ann Carpenter & Daniel Immergluck & Abram Lueders, 2016. "Declines in Low-Cost Rented Housing Units in Eight Large Southeastern Cities," FRB Atlanta Community and Economic Development Discussion Paper 2016-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    7. Dimitris Dalakoglou & Penny Harvey, 2012. "Roads and Anthropology: Ethnographic Perspectives on Space, Time and (Im)Mobility," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(4), pages 459-465.
    8. Hansen, Helena & Bourgois, Philippe & Drucker, Ernest, 2014. "Pathologizing poverty: New forms of diagnosis, disability, and structural stigma under welfare reform," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 76-83.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Perry, Amanda & Lawrence, Vanessa & Henderson, Claire, 2020. "Stigmatisation of those with mental health conditions in the acute general hospital setting. A qualitative framework synthesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Biswas, Debashish & Hossin, Raduan & Rahman, Mahbubur & Bardosh, Kevin Louis & Watt, Melissa H. & Zion, Mazharul Islam & Sujon, Hasnat & Rashid, Md Mahbubur & Salimuzzaman, M. & Flora, Meerjady S. & Q, 2020. "An ethnographic exploration of diarrheal disease management in public hospitals in Bangladesh: From problems to solutions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    2. Wong, Sandy, 2016. "Geographies of medicalized welfare: Spatial analysis of supplemental security income in the U.S., 2000–2010," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 9-19.
    3. Lad, Saloni U. & Sinopoli, Jacob & Khong, Brian & Conroy, Britt & Perzynski, Adam T. & del Rincon, Juan P., 2024. "Clinical and sociodemographic characteristics as predictors for quality of life in transmasculine and transfeminine individuals receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 346(C).
    4. Anson Au, 2023. "Reassessing the econometric measurement of inequality and poverty: toward a cost-of-living approach," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Hamdi Lamine & Alessandro Lamberti-Castronuovo & Prinka Singh & Naoufel Chebili & Chekib Zedini & Nebil Achour & Martina Valente & Luca Ragazzoni, 2023. "A Qualitative Study on the Use of the Hospital Safety Index and the Formulation of Recommendations for Future Adaptations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-13, March.
    6. Panter-Brick, Catherine & Eggerman, Mark, 2018. "The field of medical anthropology in Social Science & Medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 233-239.
    7. Wilfred Dolfsma, 2013. "Government Failure," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15372.
    8. Broekman, S.M. & Gils- van Rooij, E.S.J. & Meijboom, B.R. & Yzermans, C.J., 2017. "Do out-of-hours GP services and emergency departments cost more by collaborating, or by working separately? : A cost analysis," Other publications TiSEM e313955c-a62e-4b27-b0ee-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Topo, Päivi & Iltanen-Tähkävuori, Sonja, 2010. "Scripting patienthood with patient clothing," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1682-1689, June.
    10. Lisa Reber & Jodi M. Kreschmer & Tyler G. James & Jaime D. Junior & Gina L. DeShong & Shan Parker & Michelle A. Meade, 2022. "Ableism and Contours of the Attitudinal Environment as Identified by Adults with Long-Term Physical Disabilities: A Qualitative Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-22, June.
    11. Harvey, Tyler D. & Keene, Danya E. & Pachankis, John E., 2021. "Minority stress, psychosocial health, and survival among gay and bisexual men before, during, and after incarceration," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    12. Dominic Piacentini, 2021. "Beside the berm: The convenience of roadside picking," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 208-218, June.
    13. Ikioda, Faith, 2016. "The impact of road construction on market and street trading in Lagos," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 175-181.
    14. Rambotti, Simone, 2020. "Is there a relationship between welfare-state policies and suicide rates? Evidence from the U.S. states, 2000–2015," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    15. Quitterie Roquebert & Remi Kabore & Jerome Wittwer, 2018. "Decentralized policies and formal care use by the disabled elderly," PSE Working Papers halshs-01877829, HAL.
    16. Whittle, Henry J. & Palar, Kartika & Hufstedler, Lee Lemus & Seligman, Hilary K. & Frongillo, Edward A. & Weiser, Sheri D., 2015. "Food insecurity, chronic illness, and gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area: An example of structural violence in United States public policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 154-161.
    17. Fanny A. Kluge & Tobias C. Vogt, 2020. "Intergenerational transfers within the family and the role for old age survival," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-021, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    18. Kapil Babu Dahal, 2022. "Engrained with modernity: commodification, medicalisation, and cross-border medical travel for health care in Nepal," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, December.
    19. Marios Spanakis & Ioanna Xylouri & Evridiki Patelarou & Athina Patelarou, 2022. "A Literature Review of High-Tech Physiotherapy Interventions in the Elderly with Neurological Disorders," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-18, July.
    20. Yang, Lawrence H. & Chen, Fang-pei & Sia, Kathleen Janel & Lam, Jonathan & Lam, Katherine & Ngo, Hong & Lee, Sing & Kleinman, Arthur & Good, Byron, 2014. "“What matters most:” A cultural mechanism moderating structural vulnerability and moral experience of mental illness stigma," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 84-93.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:245:y:2020:i:c:s027795361930663x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.