UCSF

In U.S. Emergency Departments, I try to understand concerns around safety as responses to the systemic conditions produced by a capitalism, a healthcare system that provides ‘just-in-time’ care, and concerns around liability that justify coercive interventions. In this dissertation, I examine safety as it is negotiated by different actors in the hospital. I survey the economic conditions that shape scarcity and triage. I examine the pressure of legal demands on placing involuntary psych holds. I talk to healthcare workers about their experiences with violence. And I critique demands for increased securitization. I draw from interviews and ethnographic observations conducted among consenting people in Bay Area Emergency Departments for medical attention, as well as the hospital staff, healthcare workers, administrators, and security guards who worked there from 2021-2022. In this work I call for an abolitionist approach to safety that addresses root-causes of conflict and expands the capacity for people in Emergency Departments to navigate difficult situations.