TY - JOUR
T1 - Co‐production in community mental health services
T2 - blurred boundaries or a game of pretend?
AU - Nielsen, Sine Kirkegaard
AU - Andersen, Ditte
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - The concept of co‐production suggests a collaborative production of public welfare services, across boundaries of participant categories, for example professionals, service users, peer‐workers and volunteers. While co‐production has been embraced in most European countries, the way in which it is translated into everyday practice remains understudied. Drawing on ethnographic data from Danish community mental health services, we attempt to fill this gap by critically investigating how participants interact in an organisational set‐up with blurred boundaries between participant categories. In particular, we clarify under what circumstances the blurred boundaries emerge as believable. Theoretically, we combine Lamont and Molnár's (2002) distinction between symbolic boundaries and social boundaries with Goffman's (1974) microanalysis of “principles of convincingness”. The article presents three findings: (1) co‐production is employed as a symbolic resource for blurring social boundaries; (2) the believability of blurred boundaries is worked up through participants’ access to resources of validation, knowledge and authority; and (3) incongruence between symbolic and social boundaries institutionalises practices where participants merely act ‘as if’ boundaries are blurred. Clarification of the principles of convincingness contributes to a general discussion of how co‐production frames the everyday negotiation of symbolic and social boundaries in public welfare services.
AB - The concept of co‐production suggests a collaborative production of public welfare services, across boundaries of participant categories, for example professionals, service users, peer‐workers and volunteers. While co‐production has been embraced in most European countries, the way in which it is translated into everyday practice remains understudied. Drawing on ethnographic data from Danish community mental health services, we attempt to fill this gap by critically investigating how participants interact in an organisational set‐up with blurred boundaries between participant categories. In particular, we clarify under what circumstances the blurred boundaries emerge as believable. Theoretically, we combine Lamont and Molnár's (2002) distinction between symbolic boundaries and social boundaries with Goffman's (1974) microanalysis of “principles of convincingness”. The article presents three findings: (1) co‐production is employed as a symbolic resource for blurring social boundaries; (2) the believability of blurred boundaries is worked up through participants’ access to resources of validation, knowledge and authority; and (3) incongruence between symbolic and social boundaries institutionalises practices where participants merely act ‘as if’ boundaries are blurred. Clarification of the principles of convincingness contributes to a general discussion of how co‐production frames the everyday negotiation of symbolic and social boundaries in public welfare services.
KW - Community
KW - Goffman
KW - Interaction analysis
KW - Mental health services
KW - User involvement
KW - Volunteers
KW - Community
KW - Goffman
KW - Interaction analysis
KW - Mental health services
KW - User involvement
KW - Volunteers
U2 - 10.1111/1467-9566.12722
DO - 10.1111/1467-9566.12722
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0141-9889
VL - 40
SP - 828
EP - 842
JO - Sociology of Health and Illness
JF - Sociology of Health and Illness
IS - 5
ER -