Doing occupational demarcation - The "boundary-work" of nurse managers in a district general hospital

This article examines how nurse managers attempted to accomplish the formal boundaries of clinical nursing in a large UK district general hospital. Th e study was undertaken in the context of wider national policy developments which had provided the impetus for role realignment. The practices and rhe torical devices nurse managers employed in doing demarcation are treated he rein as examples of "boundary-work." The management context is an arena whi ch has hitherto been neglected in symbolic interactionist studies of the ho spital division of labor and, as a consequence, the understanding of the pr ocesses through which occupational jurisdictions are constituted remains pa rtial. This article aims to begin to address this gap in the literature by considering the contribution of these microsociological processes to the pr actical accomplishment of the hospital division of labor.