Paper short abstract:

I will present a study exploring how working-age adults with multimorbidity navigate complex care systems. The study draws on collaborative methods as an inevitably open-ended form of knowledge-making that allows the focus of this project to emerge from what matters most for patients.

Paper long abstract:

Multimorbidity is regarded as one of the greatest emerging challenges for healthcare systems. However, despite many attempts to clarify the definition and its measurement, the concept remains elusive.

Instead of trying to pin the concept down by defining it, I investigate what multimorbidity means for people living with it.

As such, the research aims are explorative and open-ended, presenting a challenge for proposing a fixed methodological approach.

I propose the use of Vigh’s (2009) concept of ‘social navigation’ as a novel empirical approach. This approach situates patients’ day-to-day experiences in the multiple social contexts in which they occur. As Vigh reminds us, navigation indicates motion within motion. Studying navigations circumvents assuming a fixed social structure but looks at how people move in moving environments and how this, in turn, moves them.

People’s daily movements are the primary unit of analysis, leaving open the possibility for exploring spaces that are often not in first instance considered as care systems. The challenge is to look for methods that can adapt according to what matters most for research participants. I propose the use of collaborative methods as vital in achieving this, because of their inherently open-ended nature. Incorporating participatory projects into the research proposal means that predetermined research aims are per definition not desirable. It pushes the boundaries on what is definable within a protocol and allows moving beyond preconceived notions of what constitutes ‘the field’. Loosening control of knowledge-making technologies transforms the research process into a group-based activity centred on the affective.