Narrating health and well‐being with vulnerable participants: The ethics of composite fiction as a creative method in health geographies

This paper explores the contributions and challenges of composite fiction as a creative method in health geography research involving vulnerable participants. I examine the use of composite fiction to navigate ethical complexities inherent in research with vulnerable participants, drawing upon my doctoral ethnography exploring health, well‐being, and place in Port Talbot, South Wales. I build upon engagements with queer, critical race theory, and feminist approaches, where researchers have experimented with composite fiction as a creative ethnographic approach for counter‐storytelling and unsettling dominant narratives. Health geographers are yet to reflect extensively on the moral and ethical contributions of the method. In my research, composite fiction served as a process of analysis and ethnographic gathering, bridging broader structural challenges with the lived realities of health experiences. I arrive at three key suggestions for the use of composite fiction in health geography research involving vulnerable participants. Firstly, co‐creation in composite fiction can challenge authorial authority as participants can contribute to shaping characters, scenes and plots. Secondly, I reflect on the trauma which can unintentionally arise in health geography research and explore composite fiction as an ethical framework to navigate this. Co‐creation and the collective sharing of trauma narratives can shift away from damage‐centred approaches toward more empowering forms of trauma representation. Finally, I argue composite fiction could offer valuable in‐depth insights into the sensory and everyday realities of health experiences in underrepresented communities. With careful crafting, it can ethically amplify voices of vulnerable participants, challenging dominant narratives, and fostering greater dialogue across academia, policymakers and the public.