Abstract - Christian Gadgaard (Summer School: Learning cultures, cultures of learning)

Health communication among ethnic minorities with Turkish background, in relation to

physical activity and prevention of lifestyle diseases.

Keywords: Ethnic minorities, health promotion, network communication, intercultural communication, practice theory, qualitative social network analysis, social constructivism.

The project seeks overall understandings of how health communication in relation to physical activity and prevention of lifestyle diseases is established and constituted in the social practices among ethnic minorities with a Turkish background. Hence the focus will be at perceptions related to health and illness, as practiced in everyday life, and which communicative network relations that potentially could serve as supportive for learning and diffusion of these perceptions, in direction of

increased physical activity.

In the paper which follows later this summer, the overall framework of my PhD will be presented. This includes the reasoning for my research question, target group, theory and method. Special focus will be on the practice theoretical perspective of the project and the qualitative social network analysis. I will discuss the implications and special challenges these positions have for the methodological and empirical work. Emphasis will be put on how practice theory equalises discourse and practice in concrete performed routinezed bodily acts. This means that health communication in network is viewed and examined by what is said (sayings), but also by what is done (doings). This also applies to the social network analysis. In combination with practice theory it brings into focus, the communication in networks relations in the social practice - which links actors, in questions of crucial health perceptions related to physical activity.

Consequently, the project's specific challenges, is how to design a methodical approach, which takes into consideration the empirical data about the organization of communicative bodily performance, in the form of representations of the network's impact on the actors' health behaviour.