Temporal aspects of counter-narratives and professional identity formation in the establishment of a new hospital department

The chapter aims at exploring counter-narratives as a theoretical and analytical concept, by combining a temporal-spatial perspective on narratives with Bourdieu’s conceptual triad of field, habitus and capital, as we believe that this offers a new and valuable framework for analyzing identity and positioning struggles in a post-merger process involving the nurses of two hospital departments. We begin by identifying a new organizational concept of United Acute Admission as a dominant master-narrative of seamless care in the wider hospital field, which ‘foreshadows’ a new understanding of good and efficient care, obtained through care re-organization and nursing de-specialization. Second, we identify multiple antenarratives ‘sideshadowing’ alternative possibilities countering central elements of the master-narrative as it materializes in the department. We argue that combining narrative with Bourdieu’s conceptual triad has the potential to provide a multilevel and deep understanding of counter-narratives.