Autonomy and selfhood are primary concerns for scholars of long-term care. Previous work has shown how organizational routines threaten client autonomy and disrupt access to the material and symbolic resources that ground the biography of the self. In this article, I examine how a group of African-American older adults within an adult day service center ameliorated these threats through religious expression. In most health care settings, religion is delivered as an individual, clinical resource. At this site, religion and recreation became intertwined such that religion became a participatory resource that affirmed client membership to a community beyond the walls of the organization. However, as an institutionally provided resource, religion was delivered through work routines that constrained which versions of community to which clients could belong. I conclude by considering the implications for the expanding universe of long-term care organizations tasked with the maintenance of the body as well as the continuity of the self.

中文翻译：

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“教会对我们的客户很重要”：长期护理组织中的自治、社区和宗教表达

自主和自我是长期护理学者的主要关注点。以前的工作表明，组织惯例如何威胁客户的自主权，并破坏对作为自我传记基础的物质和象征资源的访问。在本文中，我研究了成人日间服务中心内的一群非裔美国老年人如何通过宗教表达来减轻这些威胁。在大多数医疗保健环境中，宗教是作为个人的临床资源提供的。在这个网站上，宗教和娱乐交织在一起，因此宗教成为一种参与性资源，可以肯定客户对组织之外的社区的成员资格。然而，作为制度提供的资源，宗教是通过工作程序传递的，这些工作程序限制了客户可以属于哪些社区版本。最后，我考虑了对长期护理组织不断扩大的领域的影响，这些组织的任务是维护身体以及自我的连续性。