TY - JOUR
T1 - Challenging Dominant Discourses
T2 - Peer Work as Social Justice Work
AU - Barrenger, Stacey L.
AU - Stanhope, Victoria
AU - Atterbury, Kendall
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the New York University Provost Research Challenge Fund.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Taylor & Francis.
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/9/2
Y1 - 2018/9/2
N2 - People with mental illnesses are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and discourses concerning the medical model, criminalization, and criminality dominate the intervention landscape for this population. Using a critical postmodern lens, 45 in-depth interviews with peer specialists who had incarceration histories were analyzed to understand how they approach their work. Peer specialists with incarceration histories constructed new identities through their training and peer work by valuing experiential knowledge. Even in the face of power differentials, they challenged dominant discourses directly and indirectly and advocated for various forms of help for the people with whom they worked.
AB - People with mental illnesses are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and discourses concerning the medical model, criminalization, and criminality dominate the intervention landscape for this population. Using a critical postmodern lens, 45 in-depth interviews with peer specialists who had incarceration histories were analyzed to understand how they approach their work. Peer specialists with incarceration histories constructed new identities through their training and peer work by valuing experiential knowledge. Even in the face of power differentials, they challenged dominant discourses directly and indirectly and advocated for various forms of help for the people with whom they worked.
KW - Critical postmodernism
KW - dominant discourses
KW - incarceration
KW - mental illness
KW - peer specialists
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U2 - 10.1080/10428232.2017.1399036
DO - 10.1080/10428232.2017.1399036
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85037621079
SN - 1042-8232
VL - 29
SP - 185
EP - 205
JO - Journal of Progressive Human Services
JF - Journal of Progressive Human Services
IS - 3
ER -