‘The right man in the right place’ – the consequences of gender-coding of place and occupation in collaboration processes

Abstract

Society needs to find new ways to utilise its resources in the best possible way in order to enable satisfactory services for its citizens in the long term. This is particularly important in sparsely populated areas, and in cities and municipalities with a declining population. This study contributes to this field by analysing a project for collaboration between the rescue service and the home-care service that has been introduced in a number of Swedish municipalities. The collaboration is intended to ensure welfare and safety for citizens, to guarantee a more efficient use of municipal resources, and to contribute to improved emergency management and civil protection. The rescue service and the home-care service are two clearly gender-coded occupations that also operate on gender-coded work places and places of work. An overarching aim has therefore been to study gendered obstacles and possibilities of the collaboration. In our analysis of the empirical data – interviews with persons involved in the collaboration – place emerged as an important aspect of the collaboration processes, and is therefore elaborated in this article to contribute with knowledge of how conceptions and gender-coding of places and occupations affect sustainable and well-functioning collaboration processes. The results show that collaboration processes between municipal services are complex and challenge ideals of the organisation, content and responsibility of work and who should perform certain work tasks. Notions of gender and gender differences are reproduced through the collaboration, which affect the efforts of municipalities to ensure welfare and safety for citizens.