Cocreation or Collusion: The Dark Side of Consumer Narrative in Qualitative Health Research
Citation
Pascal, J. & Sagan, O. (2018) Cocreation or Collusion: The Dark Side of Consumer Narrative in Qualitative Health Research. Illness, Crisis & Loss, 26(4), pp. 251-269.
Abstract
Health, mental health and social care policy are dominated by the
imperative of employing person-centred approaches. Such involvement of
the 'consumer' is generally claimed to provide a counter-narrative to the
psychiatric and medical paradigm of illness. Taking a critical and reflexive
standpoint, we find ourselves asking: Is there a dark side to employing
person-centred approaches and potential loss and risk to participants
themselves?
To explore these questions further we undertook a condensed critique of
the current mental health, health and social care policy arena. We then
move to methodological concerns about ways in which person-centred
research, including our own, can inadvertently reproduce the neoliberalist
agenda.
To conclude, we offer our own lived experiences as a cautionary tale. We
also posit that a post-Foucauldian governmentality framework can assist
researchers to avoid contributing to the very problems we wish to resolve.