Normeringen av handläggarna i sjukförsäkringen: En narrativ etnografi på Försäkringskassan

Abstract

The article investigates the role of organizational narratives and story-telling in the normative governance of staff at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SIA), more precisely in the normative shaping of caseworkers as desirable subjects. The organizational narratives are instrumental both in de-stabilizing present role- identities and self-understanding, and in providing script and templates for the (presently) legitimate ways of thinking and being as caseworkers in the sickness insurance. By re-telling the organizational narratives, the caseworkers co-create the normative order. The analysis combines narrative ethnography and governmentality-
analysis based on qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations in five local offices.