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Scientific article AUG 2020

The everyday drama of co-production in community mental health services: Analyzing welfare workers’ performance as the “undercover agent”.

Authors:

  • Sine Kirkegaard
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Current welfare policy encourages “coproduction” between citizens and welfare workers so that “lay expertise” effectively becomes part of the provision of services. Drawing on fieldwork from Danish mental health services, this article analyzes how expertise and authority are organized and performed in a network linking welfare workers and users as well as new participants (e.g., volunteers) and artifacts. Theoretically, the article employs Goffman's dramaturgical distinction between “frontstage” and “backstage.” The findings indicate that welfare workers coproduce services by covering their authority and expertise in “frontstage” meetings with users. However, relational and material resources in encounters “backstage” make welfare workers appear as accountable experts, which both fosters and threatens their credibility.

Authors

  • Sine Kirkegaard

About this publication

  • Published in

    Symbolic Interaction
VIVE – The Danish Centre for Social Science Research provides knowledge that contributes to developing the welfare society and strengthening quality development, efficiency enhancement and governance in the public sector, both in municipalities, regions and nationally.
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