Professionals working in residential care for children everyday perform the institutional relevant activity of constructing their cases. This article analyzes the ways in which they construct the case of ‘unaccompanied minors’ (UAM) and how, in doing so, they talk into being their everyday practices of work. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Italian residential care professionals, this study adopts a Discourse Analysis approach. Findings illustrate how the discursive assemblage of UAM relies on participants’ multiple distinctions and on a contrastive rhetoric that is widely used in social work. Differences in the case-construction of UAM mirror participants’ institutional settings and overall socio-cultural debate, paving the way for future investigation.
`Inevitable distinctions'. The discursive construction of unaccompanied minors’ agency in Italian residential care / Saglietti, Marzia. - In: LANGUAGE AND DIALOGUE. - ISSN 2210-4119. - 9:1(2019), pp. 172-190. [10.1075/ld.00037.sag]
`Inevitable distinctions'. The discursive construction of unaccompanied minors’ agency in Italian residential care
Marzia Saglietti
2019
Abstract
Professionals working in residential care for children everyday perform the institutional relevant activity of constructing their cases. This article analyzes the ways in which they construct the case of ‘unaccompanied minors’ (UAM) and how, in doing so, they talk into being their everyday practices of work. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Italian residential care professionals, this study adopts a Discourse Analysis approach. Findings illustrate how the discursive assemblage of UAM relies on participants’ multiple distinctions and on a contrastive rhetoric that is widely used in social work. Differences in the case-construction of UAM mirror participants’ institutional settings and overall socio-cultural debate, paving the way for future investigation.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.