Alternative care practitioners: Creating commitment in an unstructured occupation

The article opposes the view that marginality is a decisive trait of Swedish alternative care practitioners. Instead, factors such as the structural looseness of these occupational roles and the fact that the practitioners belong to no specific work organization is stressed. The practitioners have to demonstrate the legitimacy of their work and enforce the boundaries around their work ethics by themselves. These outward presentations of work selves-function as socio-psychological side bets in that the alternative care practitioners seem to create their own strong work commitments—what they detested most were the non-committed, the cynics.