Models of co-production: Coconstructing knowledge with
communities
Dr Kate Pahl
February 2017
Different types of research
• Community-controlled and -managed, no professional
researchers involved.
• Community-controlled with professional researchers managed
by and working for the community.
• Co-production – equal partnership between professional
researchers and community members.
• Controlled by professional researchers but with greater or
lesser degrees of community partnership, e.g.
• Advisory group involved in research design or dissemination.
• Trained community researchers undertake some/all of data
gathering, analysis, writing.
• Professional researcher uses participatory methods (e.g.
young people take photos). (Banks et al 2012)
Who does what in research?
Defining the
research topic
or question
Problem
identification
Framing the study
Getting the
funding
Collecting the
data
Analysing the
data
Consulting and
linking to the
literature
Writing up the
study
‘traditional
method’
‘Participatory
method’
Participatory research: A
comparison of process
Participatory research
Conventional research
What is the research for? Action
Understanding
Who is the research for?
Local people
Institutional, personal
and professional interest
Whose knowledge
counts?
Local people’s
Scientists
Methodology chosen
for?
Empowerment, mutual
learning
Disciplinary conventions
‘objectivity’ and trust
Who takes action?
Local people
External agencies
Who owns the results
shared
The researcher
What is emphasised?
process
outcomes
Who does what in research 2
PR
Conventional research
Problem identification
Local people
researcher
Data collection
Local people
researcher
Interpretation
Local concepts and
frameworks
Disciplinary concepts
and frameworks
Analysis
Local people
researcher
Presentation of findings
Locally accessible and
useful
By researcher to other
academics or funding
body
Models of participation
• Pockets of participation (Franks 2009)
• Emergent participation
• Full participation (Cornwall and Jewkes
1995)
• What are the barriers to participation?
• What methods are more inclusive than
others?
Arnstein’s ladder of participation
Models of co-production of
knowledge
• Communities of practice approach (Hart
and Wolff 2006)
• Dialogic Co-Inquiry spaces (Banks and
Armstrong 2014)
• Holding space (Witkin 1974)
• Provocation (Language as Talisman)
• Discuss ways in which these intersection,
which are different.
Methodologies for co-production
• Located within dialogic, conversational,
relational networked practices
• Often very context dependent, local, familiar,
everyday, worn by use, storied.
• Subject to critique, reversal, failure,
uncertainty, mess, disorientation, complexity,
muddle, interpretative confusion
• Can yield unexpected ways of knowing,
facing out the ‘other’ in relational spaces.
(Pahl and Facer 2017)
University research collaborations
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ferham Families exhibition
A Reason to Write
Writing in the Home and in the Street
Language as Talisman
Portals to the Past
Imagine
All rest on collaboration with youth service,
young people and families in research.
Ferham Families (2006-7)
• Invited British Asian Families to co-curate
an exhibition about their family life
• Funded through the AHRC’s Diasporas
Migration and Identities research
programme
• Involved visual artist, Zahir Rafiq, in the
process of recruitment, the design of the
exhibition and the website:
http://www.everyobjecttellsastory.org.uk
Conversations
Coding
drawing out
of themes
taking
themes to
families
Interviews
with
families
2 stages
reconfiguration
of identities
Creation of
boxes and
display panels,
Families
reflect on what
they see
Maps
A Reason to Write
• Artist, musician and a photographer plus a
researcher for two years in the school
• Project became focused on relationship between
the place and what were the children’s reasons
to make meaning.
• In second year research was participatory
• Children investigated how the artists helped
them learn in the classroom.
• They used FLIP videos, still images and group
discussion to collect and analyse data
Living your life
Courtney: Its not about being good all the time at
school its about spending your life in school
because it is the only chance you’ve got
Kate: You said something else about drama and in
between…
C: When you are in drama you can act out but you
can also act out in school its about spending
your life, and its is not just about drama you can
just live your life
Robbie: Before it, Declan he said, let me video
you, he said no, I went to take picture, Declan
danced like that, I took a picture, it went all
blurring so we deleted that one, we were going
to do loads so we could like just place finger and
make it into a video
SP: animation
A: We were all like messing about Declan started
dancing
R: It’s a good picture though I like the picture
Declan Dancing
Co-writing
• Courtney, Declan, Robbie and Aisha then
came to the University.
• They co-wrote an article with me and
Steve Pool called ‘Its just living your life
because it’s the only life you’ve got’ (Pahl
and Pool 2011)
• Focus was on analytic discussion with
children in the school
Writing in the home and in the
street
• Involved community walks, collaborative
ethnography and oral history with art element
• My focus was on everyday writing practices in
home settings in Rotherham
• Worked with children in a school to look at the
everyday writing in their community
• Co-produced a film that made a difference to
local community and was shown to the school
improvement service
Writing in the street
Community co-curation
• Exhibitions at Jessop West and Bank
Street Arts
• Bank Street Arts gave a residency to two
girls (aged 12) from East Dene,
Rotherham who co-curated a room in the
art gallery.
• Zahir Rafiq as artist supported the
process.
• Repurposed library book for teenagers
Writing materials
Language as Talisman
• Partnership with Rawmarsh youth service,
two schools, UoS English department,
Education department, and Inspire
Rotherham
• Young people have talismans that protect
them, including dialect terms, sayings,
poems and songs
• Created a book, ‘Reunion’, a film and
talismans in schools
The knowledge is in the park
• Development of new space where all the
partners include community groups
materialise language in different ways
• Rap, poetry, sayings, stories, all placed in
speakers in the park
• Idea for the project came from group
discussions with young people in the park
• Led to new project called Fishing for
Wisdom co-constructed with youth service
Need to involve community partners,
and young people in
– Writing funding bids
– Coming up with the research question
– Designing the project
– Constructing a methodology
– Data collection
– Data analysis and interpretation
– Writing up
– Dissemination
Re-framing knowledge
• How is knowledge constructed?
• Who is in charge of that process?
• Knowledge held in the community
However, bringing back in the importance of
context means understanding the
dimension of “tacit knowledge” that is often
hidden, or denigrated. (May and Perry
2016)
Practices that underpin coproduction
• Collaborative writing practices
• De-centering of the human subject
• Attending to objects as well as language, ‘the
humble life of things’
• Attending to craft, skill, tacit knowledge
• Culture is ordinary, everyday lived experience
• Focusing on action rooted in place
• Studio as model of practice, art as knowing.
What should the university do
otherwise?
• How does this ‘fit’ with…
– Departments?
– Disciplinary structures?
– University structures?
– Knowledge structures?
– Community action?
– Social change?
What is co-production of
knowledge in research?
• Define the concept of participatory
research and co-production.
• Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of
this approach.
• What might be some of the problems or
difficulties you encounter?
• What might be the advantages?
Some considerations
• Money – do you pay your community
partner?
• Ethics – whose ethics count?
• Focus of study – whose voice is most
important?
• Power – how does funding alter the
situation?