Burnout as occupational injury and narrative of resistance

During the last years of the 1990s and the first of the 2000s, burnout was a common diagnosis for sick listing in Sweden. That burnout is directly related to working life was acknowledged by medical experts as well as in social debate. The number of applications for occupational compensation due to social and organisational factors in work rose from a very modest degree to nearly a forth of the claims among occupational diseases.

In this article 48 individual claims for compensation in cases of burnout as occupational disease are analysed as narratives of resistance. In this respect they are seen as alternative accounts of risk in working life, but also as narrative about resistance. The concept, narratives of resistance, is used to understand the claimants’ argumentation for rights to compensation, as well as how the claimants draw upon public narratives of societal transformation to understand how they themselves have become ill from occupations that normally are not thought to be hazardous.