Superdiversity seminars: Understanding the practice and developing the concept of healthcare bricolage

The third seminar (7th April 2022) in University College Cork’s Superdiversity seminar series was presented by Professor of Migration and Superdiversity, Jenny Phillimore, from the Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology, University of Birmingham. Professor Phillimore is a world-leading scholar in refugee integration, superdiversity and access to social welfare with a particular focus on public health. She is also an expert on community sponsorship. The seminar was chaired by Dr Claire Dorrity, a Lecturer in Social Policy at UCC’s School of Applied Social Studies. It was the third in a series of seminars organised by the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century (ISS21) at UCC as part of the UNIC Superdiverse Academy work package.

Professor Phillimore provided an overview of the UPWEB project – a research project aimed at ‘Understanding the Practice and Developing the Concept of Welfare Bricolage’. The UPWEB project was funded by the NORFACE Welfare State Futures research programme (2014-2019). In her overview, Professor Phillimore introduced the concept of ‘welfare bricolage’, using it as a mechanism to explore the structures and rationales underpinning need and action, and how resources are connected across welfare regimes and borders and within locales.

In the realm of healthcare, the term ‘healthcare bricolage’ is defined as “a creative mobilisation, use and re-use, of wide-ranging resources, including multiple knowledges, ideas, materials and networks in order to address particular health concerns” (Phillimore et al, 2019).

The UPWEB project examines the experiences of residents of superdiverse neighbourhoods in accessing services for their health concerns, including formal and informal sources of advice, treatment and support, as well as investigating the influences on residents’ access to healthcare.

Further details and results from this project can be accessed here.