Identity Politics in Multiprofessional Teams

Abstract

Summary: Post-modern and social construction views of identity creation applied to social work multiprofessional teams are exemplified by palliative care social work. They provide complex understandings that allow for ambiguities in identity creation.

Findings: A personal and social self interacting create identity, emerging from social relations. Professional identity thus emerges from the interaction between personal identity and collective professional identities. Ascription of social and professional identities by powerful social groups is resisted, but identities emerge in identity politics among professional groups in social situations. In a client-worker-agency interaction cycle, multiprofessional interactions in communities of practice lead individual professionals to negotiate knowledge to form specialized roles such as palliative care social work. These then influence wider professional identities.

Applications: Rather than seeking to maintain established professional identities, workers may more effectively develop their professional identity by negotiating knowledge and demonstrating practice in multiprofessional teams.