Understanding the practice and developing the concept of welfare bricolage (UPWEB)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Michi Knecht
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 260371466

• Final Report Year: 2018

Final Report Abstract

1. To examine the experiences of residents of superdiverse neighbourhoods in accessing services for their health concerns, including formal and informal sources of advice, treatment and support. Ethnographic street mapping and interviews with a diversity sample of adult residents in Gottsunda and Sävja. 2. To investigate the influences on residents’ access to healthcare, looking locally, nationally and transnationally. Analysis of interviews with residents and with neighbourhood service providers, in combination with survey results. 3. To explore how different service providers identify and meet the healthcare needs of neighbourhood residents. Analysis of service provider interviews in light of resident interviews and survey results. 4. Drawing on the qualitative and quantitative findings to describe new models of service provision suitable for diverse and mobile neighbourhoods. Identification of a range of formal and informal sources of support and treatment and a bricolage typology whereby patterns of residents usage across public healthcare, private and alternative services are identifiable. Identification of bricolage typology among service providers and differential levels of bricolage across the four countries. Identification of common (and longstanding) lack of good quality healthcare interpretation, hindering access across all four countries. Description of an enhanced model for superdiverse locality-based healthcare access Exploration of constrained meanings of gratitude for services, expressed by vulnerable women of migrant background Description of trans-global healthcare seeking patterns. The findings have described the complexity of healthcare seeking in neighbourhoods characterised by migration-driven diversity. The project coincided with the ‘migration crisis’ of 2015-16 when around 163,000 refugees arrived in Sweden, with welfare and healthcare services stretched in meeting increased demands. The evidence from our project has been very timely in filling in the picture of the strategies and tactics adopted by neighbourhood populations made up of new arrivals, longer standing and resident populations and how these needs are met by providers. Our findings have made visible unofficial work undertaken by patients and professionals that is not accounted for. This is important in understanding the particular demands and opportunities that diverse neighbourhoods represent. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/generic/upweb/index.aspx

Publications

• Is superdiversity a useful concept in health research? Frontiers in Sociology 2017
  Hannah Bradby et al.
  
• Health providers as bricoleurs: an examination of the adaption of health ecosystems to superdiversity in Europe. Journal of European Social Policy 2018
  Jenny Phillimore et al.
  
• Universalism, diversity and norms: Gratitude, healthcare and welfare chauvinism. Critical Public Health. 2018
  Hannah Bradby et al.
  
• Bricolage as conceptual tool for understanding access to healthcare in superdiverse populations. Social Theory & Health volume 17, pages 231–252 (2019
  Jenny Phillimore et al.
  
• Making gendered healthcare work visible: over-looked forms of labour in four European settings. Social Inclusions 2019 vol 7 issue 2, Exhausted Women—Exhausted Welfare: Understanding Religion, Gender and Welfare in Social Inclusion
  Hannah Bradby et al.