The Emancipatory Research Paradigm

1
(No Transcript)
2
The Emancipatory Research Paradigm
3
The Emancipatory Research Paradigm

• A post-modern conception for scientific inquiry?
• Emancipatory research makes no pretence of a
  dispassionate objectivity and it proclaims no
  pseudo-independence from the complex values and
  concerns that define us as human beings
• Rather, emancipatory research is driven by a
  robust commitment to end the oppression, the
  stigma and the discrimination of people affected
  by serious substance use problems

4
Herald Sun Newspaper 27-8-05 Melbourne,
Australia A man collapses and is unconscious at
the rear of the Victorian State Parliament.
Instead of rushing to help him, police handcuff
him leave him face down (not in the recovery
position, but flat on his face) arrest his
friends (who were the only people who bothered to
call the ambulance), search him, seize his
belongings and leave him until paramedics arrive
to resuscitate him.
POLICE CODE OF CONDUCT I uphold the right in my
role within the Victoria Police Force by acting
with integrity and by providing service
excellence to everyone
5
The Emancipatory Research Paradigm

• As people with lived experience of addiction and
  recovery, we are asking for acceptance and
  support of emancipatory research approaches
• We have aspirations and hope about quality of
  life, valued roles, good outcomes, full recovery,
  self help, taking responsibility, empowerment and
  liberation
• We are seeking support from visionary and skilled
  scientists to assist us to empower ourselves
  because we recognise and accept that only through
  a blend of two types of expertise working
  collaboratively (expertise by experience and
  expertise by profession) shall we achieve
  emancipation and the social conditions for
  wellbeing

6
The Emancipatory Research Paradigm

• Despite an increasing interest in the consumer
  perspective, (rhetorically, even in the field of
  alcohol and other drugs), virtually all of focus
  of this interest remains professionally
  determined.
• People affected by substance use problems
  continue to be systematically excluded
• Our conditions are being defined for us
• There is a pre-determined focus on pathology,
  deficits and blaming the victim
• Our conditions are seen as psychological /
  individual disorders and the political, cultural
  and social dimensions (degradations) are largely
  ignored
• We are seen as passive recipients / subjects
  (largely incompetent)
• Power, resources, control and agenda setting
  remains exclusively in the hands of policy
  makers, researchers, service planners and
  treatment professionals

7
The Emancipatory Research Paradigm

• In contrast, similar to the aspirations and well
  documented needs of liberation movements among
  women, African-Americans, people with
  disabilities, people with same sex preferences
  and most recently, people with mental illness, we
  seek to end the oppression and improve the way
  people with serious substance use disorders are
  treated
• Emancipatory research has the capacity to become
  one key strategy in assisting people affected by
  substance use problems to speak out, to elevate
  their experiential expertise into a credible and
  meaningful knowledge base, to gain access to much
  needed resources, to better self manage their
  care needs, to take on valued roles and to lead
  fulfilling and worthwhile lives

8
The Emancipatory Research Paradigm

• The strategies
• Build robust partnerships with visionary
  professionals
• Define a new epistemology based on lived
  experience of addiction and recovery
• Develop and articulate a research agenda for and
  by the people directly affected
• Provide opportunities for gaining relevant
  knowledge and skills
• Encourage full participation and empowerment
  through providing access to valued, respected and
  meaningful roles
• Continue to raise awareness and disseminate
  knowledge in an effort to assist people affected
  to take better control over their lives, to
  become familiar with ways of thinking about
  their condition and to better understand and
  support the need for an emancipatory movement

9
Putting the Vision into Practice
10
Putting the vision into practice

• Robust partnerships between expertise by
  experience and expertise by profession
• The National Development and Research Institutes
  a New York based research and educational
  organisation working in the areas of drug and
  alcohol treatment and recovery HIV, AIDS and
  HCV therapeutic communities youth at risk and
  related areas of public health, mental health,
  criminal justice, urban problems, prevention and
  epidemiology
• The Self Help Addiction Resource Centre a peer
  based organisation in Melbourne which combines
  the expertise of experientialists with skilled
  professional practice to provide services that
  include residential recovery support, help for
  families and carers and advocacy for people
  affected by serious and chronic substance use
  problems

11
Putting the vision into practice

• Define a new epistemology based on lived
  experience of addiction and recovery
• Systematically document experiential learnings of
  people who have been through it
• Create an empirical knowledge base founded on
  experiential expertise
• Demonstrate that experiential knowledge (the
  experiential frame of reference is a valid way of
  knowing the world)
• Reclaim the cultural authority to define
  reality, to construct meanings and to articulate
  values that are gained by personal subjective
  experience
• Elevate experiential expertise to a level of
  credibility and authority equal to the expertise
  of a scientist or professional

12
Putting the vision into practice

• Develop and articulate a research agenda for and
  by the people directly affected
• THE PATHWAYS PROJECTS
• A cross-cultural exploration of addiction
  recovery processes and experiences in the United
  States and Australia

13
Pathways Projects

• Pathways New York
• A 5 year NIDA funded longitudinal study
  investigating the factors associated with stable
  recovery over time (data collected 4 times at
  yearly intervals)
• Semi-structured interviews and qualitative life
  history interviews
• A baseline group of 354 participants self
  identified as in recovery (from 1 month to 10
  years)
• Pathways Australia
• A 2 year NIDA funded cross-sectional replication
  of Pathways New York
• The project commenced in April 2005 and we are
  seeking 160 participants

14
Why study the recovery process

• It is a wellness (strengths-based) focus in
  contrast to one based on pathology
• The approach stresses the importance of
  experiential authority in building a knowledge
  and skill base for successful strategies for
  living, identifying needs and other determinants
  of recovery and relapse
• We know very little about how recovering persons
  achieve and maintain their status over time ( in
  terms of locating skills, assets and capacities),
  
• Learnings from the recovering community can
  contribute to
• Instillation of hope (non-illusory hope),
• Identification of recovery capital
• Building robust and more accessible recovery
  pathways

15
Putting the vision into practice

• Provide opportunities for gaining relevant
  knowledge and skills and for participation and
  empowerment
• Starting with the proposition that experts by
  experience have the requisite competencies and
  capacities to take on valued and meaningful roles
  
• Designed situations where the object of the
  research has the opportunity to become the
  researcher
• In Australia, lived addiction and recovery
  experiences were key criteria in staff
  selection
• Experientialists participated fully in the design
  and review of the instruments
• Study data is being collected by trained
  experientialists
• The experientialist is empowered through taking
  on a high status role

16
Putting the vision into practice

• Continue to raise awareness and disseminate
  knowledge in an effort to assist people affected
  to take better control over their lives, to
  become familiar with ways of thinking about
  their condition and to better understand and
  make a decision to embrace the need for an
  emancipatory movement
• Findings are being and will be interpreted,
  reported and disseminated from and for both the
  scientific and experientialist perspective.
• A key imperative of this research is to provide
  the findings of what is perceived and experienced
  by people - directly back to the people affected

17
The experiential body of knowledge

• Definitions of recovery
• Biggest challenges, reasons for relapse
• Strategies for living and lessons learned
• Essential supports, recovery capital
• Rewards the fruits of recovery
• Conceptions of what constitutes quality of life /
  well being
• Conceptions of meaning of life issues,
  spirituality, reason for being
• Determinants / predictors of long term recovery
• Development of a politics of emancipation
  through equal partnerships between the
  researchers and the researched

18
NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US
19
PATHWAYS

• For correspondence
• gstorey_at_sharc.org.au
• laudet_at_ndri.org
• For copies of the presentations and findings to
  date
• www.ndri.org/ctrs/cstar.html
• SHARC website
• www.sharc.org.au