Moraalijärjestysten rajoilla : Väkivallan kohtaaminen ammatillisena toimintana ja rajatyönä sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollossa

This article investigates the boundary work performed by social and health care professionals. We are interested in how professionals – as municipal authorities – describe their encounters with clients exposed to domestic violence (DV). Our main concern is with the negotiation of responsibilities, more specifically with starting points and social orders in which perceptions of responsibilities, rights and obligations are linked. Accordingly, we investigate what moral orders are followed, equated and/or contrasted in boundary work. This paper deepens previous DV research concerning professional practices and service systems in response to DV. We utilized thematic analysis and analysed ten focus group interviews involving a total of 45 social and health care professionals. Our focus was on boundary work both within and between professions. The themes concerning individual boundary-drawing within the profession were the Recognition of DV and DV-related emotions. Boundaries were drawn to identify and name DV as well as to estimate whether or not intervening was seen as a professional’s duty and what kind of expressions of emotions were accepted. Boundary work between different professions appeared as a collective activity involving us-others meaning-making, in which our focus was to analyse the themes of Multi-professional negotiations and the Dimensions of cooperation. At the boundaries of professions, negotiations on collaboration are held, at the same time as professionals build up and highlight their own professional role and expertise. They also seek recognition and legitimacy for their own actions. In addition to the institutional and juridical moral order, boundary work was also done on the basis of a personal moral order both within the profession and between professions. This illustrates how encountering DV is not only based on pre-established guidelines and procedures.