Networks as culture: understanding and accounting for risks within networks of medico-social actors

Abstract

The anthropological part of the present research project addresses the issue of risk and uncertainties relating to perinatality and disability, and draws from the discourses of professionals in a perinatal network in the French Lorraine region. From an anthropological point of view, it is necessary to determine how and to what extent the views of professionals determine the network’s management policies. The place conferred to ‘the user’ in these representations is one of several important issues to be analysed in order to gain better understanding of the management of relationships that result from it. What is the position of professionals who ‘negotiate’ and ‘organise’ the cost of the risk of disability when grasped in connection with their images of the ‘users’ (children and parents)? This qualitative study consisted of 40 semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 medical, social, and community professionals, all involved directly or indirectly with the network. The results demonstrate the importance of a network assessment as a ‘culture’ from the social and cultural relations of network professionals. These relations form the cement of a structure made of interpersonal ties and rooted in particular histories around a ‘user’ that are conveyed through individual narratives.