Negotiated social space: a relook at partnership in contemporary health care

Abstract

Partnership figures prominently in the rhetoric of contemporary health care. The notion of an ‘active’, ‘informed’ patient in partnership with health care providers has permeated practice and policy globally. Consequently, understandings of partnership have colonized the social space that exists between health care providers and health care recipients. Drawing on Foucault's notion of discourse, this paper explores partnership as a discursive event and interrogates the way understandings about partnership construct how partnership is enacted, including the subject positions of health care professional and patient, which in turn construct understandings about partnership. The paper argues that partnership is more than simply participating in health care. It involves questioning who is offering whom what, and how. The discussion aims to trouble and unsettle taken for granted assumptions about partnership to allow for the possibility that partners can position themselves in the social space that is the site of the partnership in a way that enables the type of professional relationship and outcomes to be negotiated by both partners.