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Savoirs expérientiels : les apports positifs issus d’expériences hors du commun

Eve Gardien

Comprendre et définir le savoir expérientiel

Eve Gardien
Experiential knowledge is the contemporary major argument justifying the solicitation of a new type of actor - the peer - in the fields of disability, mental health, chronic illness, but also addiction, extreme poverty and neurodevelopmental disorders. This article aims to understand and define the concept of experiential knowledge. In order to do so, the methodology used consists of two steps. First, a short review of the literature makes it possible to situate the concept in the context of its emergence. This will clarify the debates about its scientific validity or its legitimacy in the name of the democratization of our societies. Then, a critical analysis of Thomasina Borkman's theoretical proposals highlights the issue of intersubjectivity and leads to the characterization of the different dimensions of experiential knowledge and its definition.

La reliance des communs : une écologie expairientielle

Bernard Andrieu
We develop three senses in this chapter of the connection of the commons: Common bodies are the common cause between peers who have gone through not only analogous but homologous situations. Having this body in common brings together those who are similar in associations of peers, chronically ill or activists for the cause: so much so that these communities constitute communitarian knowledge because they are produced between peers for peers. Sharing is an intersection between peers who share certain points in common but in situations so different that bodily dialogue is necessary to build common knowledge. The mutual aid community, like self-health pharmacies, promotes the sharing of knowledge by exchanging with each other to form a common library. Are these epistemological communities? The commons are not shared as property because they constitute what belongs to no one but is the responsibility of everyone. Faced with the neo-liberal globalization of gory capitalism, the protection of spaces and people must avoid the disaster of appropriation. Extractivism consists of accumulating knowledge for one's peer group without sharing or making it available. The recognition of irreducible and indigenous knowledge constitutes inalienable living reserves.

Savoirs expérientiels personnels « hors du sens commun » liés à la maladie chronique

Gildas Brégain
The aim of this article is to relate, from a personal point of view, some 'uncommon' knowledge relating to the experience and management of my chronic health problems. The construction of this experiential expertise is based both on my experience of the illness and my understanding of it, as well as on the way in which I perceive my environment. In the first part, I discuss my medical career and how I have built up knowledge about illness and its management. Some ‘uncommon’ experiential knowledge has been slow to emerge and has been perfected, while others have not. In the second part, I present some 'uncommon' experiential knowledge, divided into several categories: (1) those based on adapting medical or alternative treatments, or judging their efficacy; (2) those based primarily on the type of postures to adopt, and (3) those based on selecting and adapting the equipment to be used.

Tailler sur mesure. De l’exploration à l’analyse des processus d’élaboration des savoirs expérientiels rares des personnes amputées

Paul-Fabien Groud
Experiential knowledge elaborated by amputees is a little-studied subject in humanities and social science. While a few studies have focused on the content of this experiential knowledge, research into the modalities by which this content is elaborated remains incomplete and has yet to be explored. In this article, we study the processes of production of amputees’ rare experiential knowledge. Focusing on certain modalities linked to the experiences of the amputated and limb-fitted body, the aim is to describe and analyze how amputees appropriate available knowledge (common knowledge, caregiver knowledge), then gradually transform it to elaborate rare experiential knowledge. Through case studies drawn from an ethnographic survey carried out in France within an association of amputees, this article studies specific modus operandi, as well as the means and processes leading to the production of this experiential knowledge.

Des pairs-aidants salariés dans les foyers de l’urgence sociale : une double loyauté entre travailleurs sociaux et résidents ou les traductions pratiques des savoirs expérientiels en institution

Patrick Bruneteaux
Peer helpers, as mediators between a social team and residents, are faced with a dual loyalty. Selected by the institution, they must earn the trust of the residents. This article examines the situational social constructs of relationship symmetrization. Their rare experiential knowledge is translated into practice, within the relevant micro-group, so as to negotiate in interaction the opening up of a field of possibilities.

Mobiliser des savoirs expérientiels rares de travailleurs pairs, migrants, au sein d’un Centre d’Hébergement d’Urgence (CHU)

Alain Bonnami
The Salvation Army Foundation's Mouzaïa Emergency Accommodation Center in Paris has been promoting peer work since 2019. This experiment is being developed within the framework of a "Chantier d'insertion" (integration through economic activity), a project enabling people who have experienced certain migrations and its traumatic effects to benefit from social and medico-social support. The aim of our research is to identify the experiential knowledge mobilized and semanticized within the "Chantier d'insertion" project. In this context, how is the experience of migrant peer workers semanticized into rare experiential knowledge? (Gardien, 2022). Our field survey is based on extracts from comprehensive and collective interviews. Based on five variables, the main findings of our analysis attempt to show how the experiential knowledge of migrant peer workers can be described as rare: “The experience of institutional care”; “Overcoming the traumas of exile”; “Evoking extreme and dangerous situations and being able to act as a resource in the face of such situations”; “Developing skills in being, saying and doing, oriented towards going out to the public. Mobilize cultural and linguistic resources.” UN SEUL PARAGRAPHE

La reconnaissance des acquis de l’expérience des travailleurs handicapés : un dispositif de formation fondé sur la reconnaissance sociale des savoirs expérientiels communs

Philippe Mazereau
This article aims to highlight the way in which a professional training system, dedicated to the Recognition of Acquired Experience of disabled workers (RAE), sheds light on a modality of social shaping of daily experiential knowledge acquired in the work. It is based on materials from cooperative research whose objective was to evaluate the effects of RAE in terms of social participation. Firstly, we contextualize the emergence of this training system, supported by the association Différent et Compétent Réseau (DCR) at the intersection of public policies on Lifelong Training (FTLV) and disability. Then we present the main results of the survey concerning the device and its effects for RAE recipients, observed by their supervisors, and those declared by the interested parties themselves, collected during interviews. Based on a secondary analysis of these materials, our analysis finally focuses on the mechanisms for updating the experiential knowledge of disabled workers and the way in which their accreditation takes place, both subjective and social.

A l’interface des savoirs d’expérience et du récit de soi : un processus identitaire individuel et collectif

Sophie Arborio
In certain rare pathological situations, medical knowledge is lacking, and uncertainty plays a key role in the understanding of illness. The latter is built up on a daily basis, but also in the care relationship, and is based on the recounting of a singular experience rather than on preconceived, objectified forms of knowledge. In this context, the identity of patients and caregivers - their relationship to themselves, to others and to the world - is disrupted and needs to be rebuilt, particularly through caregiver-caregiver-caregiver interactions. Experiential knowledge can be seen as the substrate through which the identity of those involved in caregiving finds a singular means of expression, the links between which and self-narrative need to be better understood. The article focuses on the dimension of identity inherent in experiential knowledge, based on the process of making sense that is associated with the process of putting things into words by care workers. But the singularity of these individualized experiences only acquires its true meaning through the sharing of this experience, for which the self-narrative is the main intermediary. From this point on, the discussion also focuses on the collective dimension of identity at stake in exchanges between caregivers and carers on the subject of experiential knowledge relating to their situation.

Co-créer des systèmes coopératifs à l’aide de la Communication NonViolente : réflexions à partir d’une expérience de capacitisme internalisé

Anne Perriard and Laurence Bachmann
This article analyzes the social conditions that support cooperative political systems in a context marked by social hierarchies, present at both structural and subjective levels. It deals specifically with internalized ableism, defined as the internalization of social norms that construct disabled people as “worth less than” because they don't fit the standards of normality. This internalization divides and isolates disabled people, generates daily pressure to approximate the able-bodied ideal and produces self-hatred. This article is based on an auto-ethnography carried out during a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) training course as part of a research study into the individual and collective transformation processes of NVC. It first analyzes the steps involved in deconstructing these norms and their effects, on the basis of a narrative articulating theoretical concepts to an experience of internalized capacitism. It then highlights the way in which explicit rules, bearing norms based on cooperation, can act as an alternative system transforming social hierarchies and the norms that underpin them. Finally, it poses the hypothesis that these explicit rules can provide a basis for inspiring cooperative political models.

Pour une autodétermination des personnes handicapées

Reginald Beyaert