PUBLICATIONS


BOOK

Seim, Josh. 2020. Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban Suffering. University of California Press. 






"Beyond adding to our understanding of a corner of the health care system too often overlooked by sociologists, Seim provides a concrete window into the ambulance in ways that benefit our understanding of the governance of urban poverty. By utilizing labor process theory, Seim captures how law enforcement, EMS, and hospital staff collaborate or exist in conflict with each other. He compellingly argues that these horizontal relations operate together with vertical relations structured by organizational policy, protocols, and bureaucratic agencies to shape how front-line work unfolds." — Social Forces


"Bandage, Sort, and Hustle is at once a straight up urban ethnography of a particular urban scene, a workplace ethnography centered on the labor process, and a compelling read. It is an exemplar of a kind of ethnographic work that reinvigorates the sociological imagination, connecting the deeply felt personal troubles of patients and the daily joys and frustrations of ambulance crews with the stratification of suffering in urban America." — Symbolic Interaction 


"Stunning analysis of the Emergency Medical System (EMS), its frontline workers, and patients . . . . A great source for highlighting how well-intentioned labor processes within seemingly benevolent occupations can further marginalize people and reproduce social inequalities." — British Medical Journal, Medical Humanities


"Dismantles the ambulance’s adrenaline-fueled mythology. . . . Seim captures the essence of ambulance work: the plethora of mundane moments interspersed with brief bursts of excitement—excitement that is always tempered by the inevitable paperwork. Undistracted by trying to impress readers with flashy stories of traumatic life or death scenarios, Seim focuses on presenting the conflicts and struggles that ambulance crews face in the course of the day."  — Cleveland Review of Books


“By connecting the dots between classic and contemporary theory, the research of others, and his own research, Seim’s work encapsulates the way that knowledge is produced and ideas are grounded in empirical observations. He starts by becoming familiar with the work of others to see what they have learned, and then he explores how his study can further inform their findings to broaden how we understand what he describes as ‘frontline governance of urban suffering’.” — Everyday Sociology Blog


"A great contribution to urban theory as it yet again underlines the importance of studying organizations and their contexts in order to understand better how urban inequalities are reproduced." — International Journal of Urban and Regional Research


"One of the best monographs I have read. Dr. Seim’s writing about his experience made the entire study more interesting to read because of his unique perspective as a sociologist on the front lines as an Emergency Medical Technician."  — New Books Network

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES

Seim, Josh and Anthony DiMario. 2023. "City of Gauze: The Medical Governance of Urban Poverty." Social Problems. (online first)


Seim, Josh and Michael McCarthy. 2023. "Classes Without Labor: Three Critiques of Bourdieu." Critical Sociology. (online first)


Seim, Josh. 2022. "Working Diagnosis: The Medical Labour Process and the Classification of Suffering." Sociology of Health and Illness. (online first)



Seim, Josh, Michael Corman, and Leo McCann. 2022. “Producing Paramedicine: Case Studies in the Medical Labor Process.” Social Science and Medicine. (online first)

 

Estefan, Michel and Josh Seim (equal authors). 2022. “Teaching Social Theory as Cartography: Toward a Pedagogy of Radical Accessibility.” Teaching Sociology. (online first)



Seim, Josh. 2021. “Participant Observation, Observant Participation, and Hybrid Ethnography.” Sociological Methods and Research. (online first)

 


Gibson-Light, Michael and Josh Seim (equal authors). 2020. “Punishing Fieldwork: Penal Domination and Prison Ethnography.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 49(5):666-690.


Seim, Josh and David J. Harding. 2020. “Parolefare: Post-prison Supervision and Low Wage Work.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 6(1):173-195.


Seim, Josh, Melody Glenn, Joshua English, and Karl Sporer. 2018. “Neighborhood Poverty and 9-1-1 Ambulance Response Times.” Prehospital Emergency Care 22(4):436-444.

Seim, Josh. 2017. “The Ambulance: Toward a Labor Theory of Poverty Governance.” American Sociological Review 82(3):451-475.

  

Seim, Josh, Joshua English, and Karl Sporer. 2017. “Neighborhood Poverty and 9-1-1 Ambulance Contacts.” Prehospital Emergency Care 21(6):722-728.

Seim, Josh. 2016. “Short-Timing: The Carceral Experience of Soon-to-be-Released Prisoners.” Punishment & Society 18(4):442-458.

 

Herring, Chris, Manuel Rosaldo, Josh Seim, and Benjamin Shestakofsky (equal authors). 2016. “Living Theory: Principles and Practices for Teaching Social Theory Ethnographically.” Teaching Sociology 44(3):188-199.

CHAPTERS, ESSAYS, AND OTHER WRITING