Project Details
Projekt
Vulnerability and empowerment: Participatory approaches to health promotion with refugees (EMPOW)
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Hella von Unger
Subject Area
Empirical Social Research
Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
Term
from 2019 to 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409654512
Vulnerability is a key concept in public health, facilitating the identification of groups in need of special support and protection. However, in its practical application, the concept unfolds ambivalent effects as it tends to be used as a label reinscribing unequal power-relations, neglecting within-group heterogeneity while underestimating the agency of (members of) the group. The EMPOW project aims to develop the theoretical foundations of the concept of vulnerability further by paying particular attention to individual and collective capabilities for agency and empowerment. A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach is chosen and refugees are involved as partners and peer researchers. In order to meet the „dual imperative“ of forced migration research, an ethical principle developed in this particular field, the study aims to generate scientific knowledge according to the respective ‘state of the art’ while at the same time striving to benefit the communities involved by improving their situation. In the multi-sited study design, CBPR case studies are conducted in three German cities where participatory approaches to health promotion are developed in a collaborative fashion. Refugees as well as further community partners (including community-based organizations providing health and social services to refugees) are involved in all phases of the research including the cross-case analysis of study findings. In the context of the research unit (PH-LENS), the EMPOW sub-project places an epistemological and methodological focus on the standpoint and participation of refugees. The perspectives and expertise of the various (academic and community) partners will be triangulated in a systematic way to generate novel insights. EMPOW thus promises to produce new knowledge about health-related vulnerability and processes of empowerment, as well as about forms of “benevolent othering”, i.e. well-meaning constructions of refugees as an “other” in helping and support relationships which may also occur in research relationships. EMPOW cooperates with other sub-projects of the research unit, who a) also apply qualitative and participatory research methods (e.g. PROREF), b) whose study instruments and results may be used as teaching material in the peer researcher training (e.g. LARGE), c) who also develop theory on “othering” (e.g. OTHER) and/or d) who investigate similar topics, groups and settings as the EMPOW case studies whose research questions will be defined more specifically as part of the participatory research process.
DFG Programme
Research Units
