Embodiment of discrimination and overseas nurses' career progression.
OBJECTIVE
To examine empirically and in-depth how discriminatory attitudes and practices are experienced by overseas nurses and how the discrimination may affect their well-being and career progression and, furthermore, to apply the theoretical perspective of embodiment in understanding these processes.


BACKGROUND
The UK healthcare sector has, in recent years, relied on overseas-trained professionals to fill up vacancies in nursing and other professions. Research shows that overseas nurses claim that their UK colleagues, managers and patients express discriminatory, racist and xenophobic attitudes.


METHODS
The paper provides an existential phenomenological analysis of in-depth interviews with two overseas nurses. The data are drawn from a study of overseas-trained healthcare workers' experiences working and living in the UK. The two cases have been purposively selected to provide an illumination and discussion of personal experiences with discrimination, how individuals may respond to these and how their professional career is affected.


RESULTS
Discrimination towards migrant workers may, at times, be experienced as 'blatant racism' or, in more subtle forms, as 'aversive racism'. It is demonstrated how such discrimination may impact on the afflicted person's sense of self, suggesting a theoretical model of the embodiment of discrimination. Discrimination not only works at an interpersonal and institutional level, but is a form of 'symbolic violence' that may be internalized to affect the person's 'habitus'; it can be resisted through meaning-making activity that explains and hence objectifies and embodies the experience in a way that allows individuals to positively influence their situation through agency.


CONCLUSIONS
This article details how social and institutionalized discrimination in the UK healthcare sector may be internalized by overseas workers and affects their professional careers.


CONCLUSIONS
The study allows a theoretical reflection on the damage inflicted by discrimination, and it may contribute to the eradication of discriminatory practices and the development of necessary support and monitoring mechanisms.
European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey Guildford UK. j.larsen@surrey.ac.uk
John Aggergaard
JA
Larsen
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel / Q000208:ethnology*; D044383:Black People / Q000193:education / Q000208:ethnology; D002322:Career Mobility; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005086:Existentialism / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005551:Foreign Professional Personnel / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology* / Q000600:supply & distribution; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology*; D015279:Organizational Culture; D011287:Prejudice; D011822:Race Relations; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits; D012944:Social Support; D006113:United Kingdom; D017132:Workplace / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology