This project presents an investigation of everyday life and identity formation for employees and residents in a § 107 housing facility within Copenhagen Municipality’s social psychiatry. Through interviews and observations, conducted by us, we investigate how the institutional framework affects both employees’ work knowledges and work practices as well as residents’ identity formation. We use Dorothy Smith’s institutional ethnography as well as Gubrium and Holstein’s theory of institutional identities to explore our empirical data further. The project aims to answer this problem formulation: "In what way is the practical work of employees and the identity formation of residents at § 107 housing services affected by the institutional framework they are part of?".
The analysis is split into two working questions, the first focusing on the employees and the second on the residents. The first part of the analysis shows that employees draw on experience-based work knowledges and prioritize the relationship with residents rather than their institutional professionalism. The employees are also limited by the institutional framework in the work that they are able to perform with the access and resources presented to them. The second part of the analysis shows that the residents’ identity formation happens through interaction and negotiation with employees as well as the institutional framework they reside within. This identity formation is also built on the residents’ own work knowledges, acquired through interaction with their environment. The project concludes that the institutional frameworks influence both employee work knowledges and practices as well as the residents’ identity formation. However, both employees and residents draw on experience-based work knowledges, which indicates that the institutions’ position as a ‘ruling relation’ may not be as prominent.