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Bandage, Sort, and Hustle
Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban Suffering
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2020
About this book
What is the role of the ambulance in the American city? The prevailing narrative provides a rather simple answer: saving and transporting the critically ill and injured. This is not an incorrect description, but it is incomplete.
Drawing on field observations, medical records, and his own experience as a novice emergency medical technician, sociologist Josh Seim reimagines paramedicine as a frontline institution for governing urban suffering. Bandage, Sort, and Hustle argues that the ambulance is part of a fragmented regime that is focused more on neutralizing hardships (which are disproportionately carried by poor people and people of color) than on eradicating the root causes of agony. Whether by compressing lifeless chests on the streets or by transporting the publicly intoxicated into the hospital, ambulance crews tend to handle suffering bodies near the bottom of the polarized metropolis.
Seim illustrates how this work puts crews in recurrent, and sometimes tense, contact with the emergency department nurses and police officers who share their clientele. These street-level relations, however, cannot be understood without considering the bureaucratic and capitalistic forces that control and coordinate ambulance labor from above. Beyond the ambulance, this book motivates a labor-centric model for understanding the frontline governance of down-and-out populations.
Drawing on field observations, medical records, and his own experience as a novice emergency medical technician, sociologist Josh Seim reimagines paramedicine as a frontline institution for governing urban suffering. Bandage, Sort, and Hustle argues that the ambulance is part of a fragmented regime that is focused more on neutralizing hardships (which are disproportionately carried by poor people and people of color) than on eradicating the root causes of agony. Whether by compressing lifeless chests on the streets or by transporting the publicly intoxicated into the hospital, ambulance crews tend to handle suffering bodies near the bottom of the polarized metropolis.
Seim illustrates how this work puts crews in recurrent, and sometimes tense, contact with the emergency department nurses and police officers who share their clientele. These street-level relations, however, cannot be understood without considering the bureaucratic and capitalistic forces that control and coordinate ambulance labor from above. Beyond the ambulance, this book motivates a labor-centric model for understanding the frontline governance of down-and-out populations.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Josh Seim
Josh Seim is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston College.
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
v -
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Illustrations
vii -
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Preface
ix -
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Author’s Note
xv -
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Acknowledgments
xvii -
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Introduction
1 - Part I. Bandaging bodies: inside the ambulance
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Introduction
25 -
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1. People Work
29 -
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2. Ditch Doctors and Taxi Drivers
50 -
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3. Feeling the Ambulance
68 - Part II. Sorting Bodies: The ambulance between hospitals and squad cars
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Introduction
85 -
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4. The Fix-Up Workers
91 -
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5. The Cleanup Workers
103 -
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6. Burden Shuffling
114 - Part III. Hustling Bodies: the ambulance underneath bureaucracy and capital
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Introduction
131 -
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7. The Barn
135 -
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8. Supervision
144 -
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9. Payback
157 -
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Conclusion
170 -
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Appendix: Notes on Data and Methods
183 -
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Notes
197 -
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Reference List
217 -
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Index
237
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
May 18, 2020
eBook ISBN:
9780520971707
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
272
eBook ISBN:
9780520971707
Keywords for this book
america; american city; saving people; transporting critically ill; field observations; experience; novice emergency medical technician; sociologist; paramedicine; frontline institution; governing urban suffering; poor people; people of color; street level relations; bureaucratic; capitalistic forces; ambulance; suffering bodies; fragmented regime; neutralizing hardships; medical records
