Models of co-production: Co-constructing knowledge with communities

1. Models of co-production: Co-constructing knowledge with communities Dr Kate Pahl February 2017

2. 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)

3. Who does what in research?

4. Participatory research: A comparison of process

5. Who does what in research 2

6. 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?

7. Arnstein’s ladder of participation

8. 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.

9. 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)

10. 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.

11. 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

12. Conversations

13. Interviews with families 2 stages Coding drawing out of themes taking themes to families reconfiguration of identities Creation of boxes and display panels, Families reflect on what they see

15. Maps

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. Declan Dancing

20. 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

21. 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

22. Writing in the street

25. 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

26. Writing materials

29. 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

30. 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

32. 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

33. 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 meansunderstanding the dimension of “tacit knowledge” that is often hidden, or denigrated. (May and Perry 2016)

34. Practices that underpin co-production • 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.

35. What should the university do otherwise? • How does this ‘fit’ with… • Departments? • Disciplinary structures? • University structures? • Knowledge structures? • Community action? • Social change?

36. 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?

37. 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?