| dc.description.abstract | The year 2020 was named the ‘year of the nurse’ by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic gave this year of the nurse and Nightingale’s homage an entirely new dimension. This thesis is rooted in three months of ethnographic research on the experience of societal valuation towards and among Dutch nurses in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic’s first and second wave in The Netherlands. It explores the framing of nurses in terms of 'health care heroes', 'essential workers’ and relevant stereotypes in relation to financial compensation, manifested in low wages for Dutch nurses. Through this research, I categorised three main ‘frames’ employed regarding nurses, being ‘the nun-like, Florence Nightingale frame, the ‘hero frame’ and finally the frame that nurses prefer: the frame of the nurse as a professional. Through these frames, existing fault lines within the notion of sustainable care work vis à vis neoliberal realities are exposed and amplified through the Covid-19 pandemic. Consequently, I argue that through discourse, existing power relations of political representation regarding nurses are relayed. Thus, this thesis offers an analytical framework for analysing care work in the context of societal valuation and neoliberal tendencies in Dutch society. | |
