The article proposes a systematic reading of work and the institutional work processes involved in patterns of social exclusion. It specifically centres on the institutional work process in a mental health hospital, proposing an analogy with the process of factory work. As a paradigmatic model, nursing work and its history enable a re-reading of the history of workers in general, since in this area workers are dealing first-hand with comrades who find themselves in a process of social degradation. The dimensions approached from this angle include: institutional intervention and work processes; the macro-processes of social exclusion/extinction; the epistemology and co-production of research for the analysis of the social processes of work. Our gnosological approach is based on co-produced research, formed by transdisciplinary intervention devices, semi-structured interviews, focused life histories, field observations, accounts from co-researcher workers and intertexts.
Epistemology of work; Co-Produced research; Hospitals; Social exclusion