Co-creation, almost a buzzword in today’s modern society, has become of great importance in the humane sciences. Originating from social studies, the idea is that in co-creating knowledge, we obtain a much wider variety of insights. In this paper, the potential of this idea will be tested in the context of Center for Sundhedsfremme in Varde. The fundamental view in this paper is a social constructionist one – namely that the narrative is a powerful tool for discovering underlying structures that affect our day to day work. This of course, is also true for the everyday life, but in this context, I will only be working with the potential for an institution like Center for Sundhedsfremme, which is why, the analysis will be focused on the landscape of action more than that of the consciousness.
The method behind this analysis is action-research. The theory here is that putting the usual into an unusual context will create new knowledge. In this paper new knowledge will refer to new narratives – ones that haven’t been visible before, because of the larger collective narratives overshadowing it. In narrative theory, the collective unconsciously agreed upon narrative, conditions what other narratives we see. In this way one is in essence controlled by the narrative and at the same time contribute to the sustaining of this social constructing – whether you want to or not. Co-creation in an intervention based research is exactly meant to abrupt this unconscious structure.
This paper will analyze three different interventions to unearth some of the “forgotten” or neglected narratives that I assume exist in Center for Sundhedsfremme. This, both in regards to our intern work and in regards to our work with extern citizens.
This process shows the involved institution parties that there are many of these narratives that we can learn from. That these narratives are made visible for everyone makes visible for us as a collective workforce that equality is of major importance to our work as an institution, this in both internal and external. It also makes visible the potential of the co-creating as an alternative approach to what we think of as objective knowledge – and how this knowledge continually changes as the story does. In conclusion, co-creation makes visible for us, how the narratives have potential as a source of knowledge, and how it has potential as a continually changing factor – and approach to our work in a continually changing world.