Sleep as active participation: An analysis of sleep in an orthopedic surgical department from a sociomaterial perspective

Abstract

Sleep in a clinical perspective is the cause of (renewed) attention. In orthopedic surgery, this attention is focused on sleep as a means of recovery. However, sleep is also an everyday life practice that is performed in a relation between body, spatial and temporal structure. A relation that is particularly intensified for older people and people with disabilities. Through a socio-material perspective on becoming, the article unfolds and discusses how sleep as phenomenon are enacted - and as practice are constituted in the institution as an relation between sleep as an everyday life and a medical practice for the older orthopedic patient. The analysis indicates that sleep is created through a medical and organizational participation perspective, as a social performance during hospitalization.