Kevin, « médiateur covid » : Récit d’une vocation déçue
Abstract
In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, local initiatives led health professionals to build health navigation networks in working-class neighborhoods to help better inform people about public health messages, notably concerning barrier gestures or vaccination. While investigating one of these “COVID-navigation” initiatives in a large city in eastern France, we met Kevin, who was a health facilitator for six months. Through the account of his experience, we discovered how a system cobbled together in times of crisis attempted to reconcile different preventive models and, in doing so, gave rise to contradictory uses of peer-mediation as a tool for participation, emancipation, and institutional legitimization. This case study, analyzed as a particular encounter between a person and a system, also illustrates the tension between a vocational calling, which is very present in social and health professions, and the precariousness of work in the public health field.
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