The quest for meaning
The quest for meaning
Chapter 4 follows Active – Back Sooner to one of the private employment agencies, ENGA, where the core delivery of the local version of the trial, the ‘activities’ and the ‘close follow-up’, were meant to take place. This chapter follows the privately employed social workers as they do their utmost to make something sensible take place as they are faced by what they find to be utterly pointless referrals from the municipal caseworkers. The chapter shows what happens when the caseworkers and employees are pushed to the limits of their personal capacities to make sense of what is going on and ultimately stop trying. The chapter concludes that the fundamental urge to make sensible decisions drives the employees to rebel against local directive and agreements. It is the very thing that creates the grounds for institutional absurdity while being in itself the only stable source of meaning.
Keywords: Institutional absurdity, Meaning-making, Resistance and rebellion, Contracting, Delivery
Manchester Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.