Service user entrepreneurs and claims to authority – a case study in the mental health area

Hilda Näslund,Stefan Sjöström,Urban Markström

doi:10.1080/13691457.2019.1580249

Hilda Näslund, Stefan Sjöström + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2019.1580249

Copy DOI

Abstract

ABSTRACT Mental health service user movements have historically to a large extent employed collective forms of mobilisation, where people with service user experience have joined in formal organisations or informal groups. Currently, expressions of service user engagement are changing, and we can now observe the growth of more individualised expressions, often enacted online. This article introduces the concept ‘service user entrepreneur’ (SUE), that relates to this development. SUEs are individuals with service user experience who have made a career of their engagement in mental health issues. Based on their individual narratives of mental ill-health, SUEs often express themselves in participatory media, hold lectures and write books on the subject. The aim of this article is to examine how SUEs in their communication establish authority. Applying case study methodology, we follow four Swedish SUEs involved in mental health issues and analyse their communication primarily in digital arenas. Intimate personal narratives, mobilisation of collectives and institutional perspectives constitute authority sources for SUEs. Balancing individual and collective narratives as well as maintaining a desirable level of vulnerability is a continuous effort. How SUEs manage these issues is further discussed.

Highlights

With democratic principles of participation and representativeness as a foundation for authority, mental health service user movements have historically to a large extent employed collective forms of mobilisation
We explore an example that reaches a larger audience, namely what we call service user entrepreneurs (SUEs)
We have primarily been concerned with the activities of SUEs, but have not looked closer into how their audiences make sense of the interaction

Summary

Introduction

With democratic principles of participation and representativeness as a foundation for authority, mental health service user movements have historically to a large extent employed collective forms of mobilisation. The Swedish service user movement has been dominated by service user organisations with close connections to the government (Markström, 2003; Markström & Karlsson, 2013). These organisations today occupy a central role in the process of democratising and developing the quality of human service organisations. Wider patterns of individualisation of politics are in recent years visible in the area These tendencies have for instance been reflected in government funded projects aimed at hiring individual service users as coordinators of public service user influence (SOU, 2006:100), or training individual service users for anti-stigma work (Andersson, 2014). Participatory media has further created new arenas for service user engagement, which often takes more individualised forms (Bennett & Segerberg, 2013; Johansson, 2015a; Myndigheten för vårdanalys, 2015)

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion