Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Changes in working life have led to unprecedented changes in professional, personal and social identities. As a consequence, individuals have had to undertake continuous identity work and to constantly locate themselves in relation to their environment. The focus of this study is the empowerment of individuals within an empowerment program. Empowerment is examined from the perspective of identity work. The main aim of the program was to support participants' professional identity by strengthening their subjectivity. The study takes a narrative approach. Identity work is viewed in terms of subject-based empowerment, which in this context is defined as increased awareness of oneself and one's relation to the social environment, and as a strengthening of possibilities to affect one's own surroundings. Identity is regarded as an ongoing project of self-realization, formed via one's personal history and experience. Becoming a subject and becoming empowered are interpreted as processes that are partly co-directional and overlapping, shaping identity or functioning as tools to reconstruct identity. The research task was to discover how participants experienced empowerment during the empowerment program and follow-up, to look at how their subjectivity developed within their work and in relation to the work organization, and to analyse the kinds of stories told by participants concerning their subjectivity. The empowerment program was set up to promote staff well-being in a particular hospital at the start of the 21st century. The research material consisted of portfolios from 19 individuals, video recordings, interviews, and semi-structured questionnaires. The material was gathered during and at the end of the program, and thereafter at 6 months, 1 year, and 4 years from the end of the program. In the sub-studies within the research, thematic and narrative analytical methods were applied. The sub-studies (4) were reported as separate articles. The results indicated that subject-based empowerment is an individual and long-term process. Significant aspects in this include an increase in awareness, working with one's own boundaries, and activation towards identity work. The significant factors for subject-based empowerment were: 1) inner strengthening, in which the important dimensions were a connection with the self, dealing with personal emotions, and an awareness of personal boundaries; 2) a new identity position, manifesting itself as a new kind of functioning in one's relation to the environment. As a conclusion it can be stated that 1) achieving a deeper level of individuality and 2) self-understanding are important for individual subjectivity. The study made possible a better understanding of the experiential process involved in the strengthening of subjectivity, considered in terms of empowerment, and of how this process is manifested in the individual's field of action.
Author: Salme Mahlakaarto
Language: Finnish
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W75041354