Abstract:
This research is about the health understandings and practices of a group of people in New Zealand who had a shared Finnish migrant history. The aim was to discover how policy and this shared history shaped the health experiences of three generations of this group who were categorised as European, but were not Anglo-Celtic. The main research procedures were participant observation and in-depth interviews with 25 participants, using ethnographic and narrative methodologies within the theoretical frame of habitus (Bourdieu, 1999). My enquiry into lay models of health revealed a process of narrative sense-making, which led to understandings that differed from the 'medical gaze' of diverse Western biomedical models. These lay models influenced whether or not health care was sought and in what circumstances, the kind of care that was sought, and the approach to compliance with medical advice. Understandings and practices were found to be generated, and reproduced, across generations through the sedimentation of seemingly mundane everyday experiences. The research also found that ways of thinking and acting about health were influenced by life experiences, including the experiences of migration and policy, and by access to the power and resources those experiences provided (or didn't provide). The study concluded that even if people are categorised as 'white' and appear physically 'British-like', their unique habitus may influence the way they think, act and feel about health in ways not predicted by policy or ethnic categorisation. This has implications for health policymaking and the provision of health care, particularly in the generational migrant context.
