Bodyrules - Rules in the hospital for dealing with the body in the field of tension of organization and immigration

Migration increases society’s cultural and religious diversity. In public organisations such as hospitals, people with different concepts of how to deal with the body have to interact with each other. Hospitals face the challenge to integrate diverse social norms related to the body through organisational rules and, thus, make their services accessible for a broad population. The qualitative case study “hospital” in the collaborative research project “Bodyrules – Rules on Dealing with the Body between Organisation and Migration” aims at analysing migration-related change of (formal and informal) organisational rules in hospitals focusing social norms related to the body. Key research question is how public organisations regulate such “body norms”, if different cultural and religious backgrounds of patients and employees encounter. Investigating this question, i.a. expert interviews with clinical staff in managing positions, participant observations in clinical care settings and narrative, guideline-based interviews with patients and clinical staff are carried out in three hospitals in Germany. At the same time, two equivalent case studies address the organisation types “school” and “public pools” within the frame of the collaborative project. Comparing the results of the case studies general and specific ways of handling cultural and religious diverse norms in public organisations will be identified.