Troubling the field of service user involvement in research

Abstract

This paper sets out to interrogate two key issues in the field of service user or public engagement in research. These relate to privileging personal experience as a way of knowing and the forms of knowledge production that are assumed to take place in research partnerships. In both instances it is suggested that current orthodoxies may ‘close down’ opportunities for learning and understanding rather than democratising them. The final section of the paper suggests alternative ways of thinking about these aspects of service user involvement in research. These include ‘troubling’ identity claims and the forms of knowledge that tend to accompany them, a reconceptualisation of how they have come to be known in research partnerships and a reorientation towards the centrality of relations/hips in these research endeavours.