Creating epistemological contexts for culturally responsive research and practice in recovery

Healthcare which enables recovery is responsive to cultural differences. Cultural difference is commonly theorised as an issue of stratification or identity, which limits accounting for how health care encounters produce difference. This presentation aims to further the epistemological contexts which enable culturally responsive research and practice in recovery. It critically examines relational ontologies and assemblage thinking in the empirical study of recovery, by asking, how do these conceptual and research practices produce difference? Drawing on decolonial and ethical perspectives, the presentation shows how posthuman deployments of the ‘relation’ concept can erase or reveal difference. It advocates cultivating attention for cultural difference by making explicit a myriad of orientations to the relation concept - conceptual, methodological, ethical, political and bodily. The presentation contributes to debates about how STS scholarship deploys relational analytics. It expands conceptual and methodological approaches to research and practice in recovery.