Co-Production as a Research Method: Reflections From a Collaborative Writing Workshop

The co-production turn has affected academic work, encouraging researchers not only to study coproduction in public organizations but also to pursue collaborative research practices with practitioners. The purpose of this chapter is to present a reflexive account of co-production as a research practice. The point of departure is a one-day collaborative writing workshop that embraced several aspects of ‘co-’. The workshop brought together two research projects, one on social innovation in elderly care and one on collaborative writing. Having been involved in both projects, the author reflects on issues of the writing project that caused great debate during the workshop and highlight dimensions of power,
quality, and impact that arise in co-produced research. The chapter shows that the co-production turn calls into question traditional power hierarchies between theory-practice, analysis-experience, and researcher-researched. While co-production seeks to even out power hierarchies, it also generates new problems, new tensions, and new questions.