Examining Self-Other Constructions to Advance the Social Justice Goals of Leisure Research

Abstract

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is used increasingly in leisure research to foster equitable relationships and social change, yet individuals who disseminate CBPR remain fraught with the challenges of upholding CBPR’s central values and principles in the daily practices of CBPR. In this analysis we examine the promises and challenges of integrating mental health ‘peer’ research participants into all phases of the CBPR process. While peers’ experiences were largely positive, reflections from team members revealed ongoing tensions in attending to power differences between academic researchers and peers - what the research team called “self-other” constructions. Our efforts to unsettle ‘self-other’ constructions built peers’ capacity and personal growth but perpetuated role distinctions, power inequalities, and tensions around structure and control. These tensions are highly instructive for leisure researchers “to reimagine leisure studies and its role in helping society understand, confront, and address complex social challenges” (Glover, 2015, p. 1).

KEYWORDS:

• social justice
• leisure research
• community-based participatory research
• mental health
• critical reflexivity

Notes

1 The term ‘peer’ is used in mental health to describe people who bring valuable insights based on their lived experience of mental distress, psychiatrization, and service utilization. We use the term ‘peer’ in this paper because of its common usage in the mental health care system.

2 Sanism is a term used to describe the very particular forms of discrimination faced by people who have been diagnosed with mental illness and to hold society to account for stigmatizing different modes of being/consciousness (see Fabris, 2011; O’Hagan, 2014).

3 Note that all names used are pseudonyms chosen by the participants.