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The care of alcoholic patients at emergency wards Volume 36, issue 2, Juin 2018

Authors
* Odile Piriou, sociologue, psychologue clinicienne et psychanalyste, Centre d’études et de recherches sur les emplois et les professionnalisations (CEREP), Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, 23 rue Clément Ader, 51100 Reims, France
** Jérôme Thomas, sciences de l’information et de la communication, Centre d’études et de recherches sur les emplois et les professionnalisations (CEREP), Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, 23 rue Clément Ader, 51100 Reims, France

Based on an ethnographic approach, this article aims at understanding the different ways of implementing the disciplinary power, such as described by Foucault, in the care of alcoholic patients at emergency wards of general hospitals. It studies the disciplinary processes founding care practices. Then it compares these disciplinary mechanisms with the uses that patients make of them. The analysis shows that disciplinary power is not imposed massively or unilaterally on people but that it results from unstable power relationships between patients and healthcare professionals.