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In this lunch seminar, Sara Nyssen will talk about her ethnographic research in one of the trainings of non-Dutch speaking care workers. In order to address unemployment among migrant job seekers as well as shortages in the care sector, the Flemish employment service organizes language trainings to prepare non-Dutch speaking job seekers for an education and subsequent employment as a nurse or caregiver. My ethnographic research in one of these trainings shows that knowledge of Dutch was by no means the sole criterion for selection and evaluation: assessment of job seekers was (partly) based on whether they were seen as good (future) care workers. As such, there was a lot of attention for job seekers’ selves in the course, specifically through the use of psychological terminology. In this lunch seminar I will argue that this concern for care workers’ selves cannot be separated from a concern for the people they have to take care of. I will explore what kind of patient emerges from the image of the ideal care worker, and what this reveals about how care work is imagined, and about who is (and isn’t) seen as suitable for care work.

About the speaker

Sara Nyssen holds a master’s degree in social and cultural anthropology and is currently a PhD researcher in sociolinguistics at Ghent University. Her research is an ethnography of a language training for the care sector aimed at migrant job seekers, with a focus on language, labor and personhood.

This lunch seminar will be on-campus only and it will take place at the faculty room of Blandijn (Faculteitszaal, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent). You can register sending an email at carla.besorabarti@ugent.be