Stirra i taket ⁠— och andra kulturanalytiska övningar på sjukhus

Abstract

The author breaks his right foot and is transported to hospital. At the same time he is moved to an alternative everyday life. During some days of passive waiting for operation in the bed, staring at the ceiling, he is reflecting on his experiences as a patient together with three other men in a hospital ward. In a kind of an instant cultural analysis he is writing down ethnographic "field notes", just to have something to do.

One thing that surprises him is how familiar the hospital life seems. Yet he has not been there as patient since he was a child. He realizes that during many years he has been indirectly learning the hospital culture through media, film and literature. Quickly he gets used to the new everyday routines and the silent expectations in this special working place. He is also fascinated of the microculture that immediately develops among the four male strangers in the ward, for example through vivid story-telling and informal rules for passing the borderline between the confronting private and public social spheres.