The art of ‘writing in’ the hospital under‐life: auto‐ethnographic reflections on subjugated knowledges in everyday practice

Abstract

Every working life will have a number of subjugated places, an ‘immense remainder’ of human experience that ‘does not speak’. Auto‐ethnography, an evocative and analytical form of writing which is itself an art, connects personal and cultural worlds by ‘writing in’ these ordinary everyday experiences. This auto‐ethnographic study re‐inscribes the everyday world of practice, which was ‘written out’ of my publications on the practices of a youth‐specific occupational therapy project undertaken in the 1980s at Camperdown Children’s Hospital. The paper evokes the hospital’s ‘under‐life’ as I experienced it. An assemblage of sense impressions and memories evokes the particular place where my writings are set and a gender analysis of hospital spaces in the early 1980s portrays the experience of a woman working in that place at that time. Auto‐ethnographic accounts of practice can contribute to the field by revealing subjugated knowledges in professions populated by women.

Keywords:

• auto‐ethnography
• gender
• professional practice
• subjugated knowledges
• writing and reflection

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Dr Jennifer Jones, Associate Professor Anne Kinsella and anonymous reviewers for editorial comments, Professor Alison Lee for doctoral supervision. The OT Writing Group for feedback on an earlier version for the OT Australia NSW‐ACT Conference 2009. This paper was prepared and submitted during a six‐month Research Fellowship with the Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education (RIPPLE) at Charles Sturt University.

Notes

1. It was Pam who suggested I write a ‘philosophy of approach’ on the work I was doing with adolescents not long after I arrived at Camperdown Children’s Hospital in 1981.

2. The term ‘adolescent’ occupational therapist had proved confusing, for example, the journal editor inserted a comma after adolescent in Denshire and Bennett (1985), thus changing the meaning.

3. Colleen Westall was the former name of Colleen Mullavey‐O’Byrne.

4. As someone who predominantly worked in a medical setting I was identified as ‘M10’ in Peppard’s research.