Adapting to the future: vulnerable bodies, resilient practices

This chapter examines the ‘Walking Interconnections: Performing conversations of sustainability’ project and focuses on the potential contributions of disabled people to sustainability planning. It talks about the interventions that the project and its outcomes have staged not only in environmental discourse and debate about inclusive public space, but also in representations of walking practices. Walking Interconnections brought together disabled people and sustainability practitioners to share walking encounters in public places. Through mapping, talking, walking and reflecting together they entered each other's life worlds. The chapter shows how their experiences are caught in photographs, maps, and Going for a Walk, a verbatim play crafted by Deirdre Heddon from the recorded conversations of the walkers.

Conclusion: Reflections on contemporary debates in co-production studies

This concluding chapter discusses the contribution of the book in relation to process-oriented research and the institutional dimension of co-production debates. It starts with discussing the key contours of the terrain over recent decades, doing so under the theme of co-production of research and the impact agenda. By focusing on the process-oriented research, the chapter draws out three key messages. First, research on co-production opens up new materialist imaginaries of both concepts through conceptualising local knowledge, analysing impact and its enabling conditions. Second, it advances new theoretical agendas for co-produced research by developing original interfaces between social sciences, arts, and humanities. Finally, it opens up the multiple temporalities of communities, exploring experimental relationship with links between present, past, and future in search of alternative temporalities of representation.

Mapping in, on, towards Aboriginal space: trading routes and an ethics of artistic inquiry

This chapter discusses the project of Trading Routes, an art/research project seeking to engage with the contested geographies in Northern British Colombia, Alberta, and relations of Indigenous and non Indigenous ways of knowing. It emphasizes the need for the ontological differences between Indigenous and non Indigenous/Western maps. The chapter calls attention to new coalitions — among artists, academics, and community leaders — that are respectful of land-based knowledge systems. Differences between colonial and Indigenous mapping and ways of knowing fissure the singular map Canada. Coming to terms with these differences is crucial to developing a more nuanced understanding of the spatial dynamics underwriting a colonial will to power as well as the means of resisting that will.

Hacking into the Science Museum: young trans people disrupt the power balance of gender ‘norms’ in the museum’s ‘Who Am I?’ gallery

This chapter reflects on the partnership between Gendered Intelligence and the Science Museum and highlights the importance of gender diversity in collaborative projects. It discusses how co-produced research impacts both organisations and conversations through the ways in which museums posit particular values and ‘norms’ around gender identity. The chapter also outlines the ‘Hacking In’ project and the impact it had on the partners involved, and reflects on the potential within collaborative projects to redress and acknowledge the power imbalances that exist within the narratives of cultural institutions. It offers a study about empowerment and the social responsibility to include, listen to, and work with those whose histories, stories, and identities have been marginalised, excluded, or communicated with little, if any, involvement from those communities.

Introduction

This introductory chapter studies the possibilities and tensions for co-produced research practices that emerge from the collision of long-established, community-oriented research practices, an increased institutional emphasis on community co-production in academia, and the ongoing critique of the key terms of these practices. Among long-established approaches to community-oriented research scholarship, Participatory Action Research (PAR) is squarely oriented to a particular vision of social justice and community defined methods and research questions. The chapter cites various case studies about what co-production looks like and some of the challenges that arise. It opens up the field and begins to illustrate in practice what the tensions and challenges of co-production are.

From poverty to life chances: framing co-produced research in the Productive Margins programme

This chapter talks about how to engage with co-produced research and participatory practices from a community perspective. It discusses how co-produced interdisciplinary research experiences and knowledge exchanges facilitate interaction with members of the community, with academics and with artists as a part of the Productive Margins project. The programme is seeking to remap the terrain of regulation, by involving the knowledge, passions, and creativity of citizens often considered on the margins of politics and policymaking. However, rather than examining the progress and outcomes of the research project itself, the chapter analyses the settings and process leading up to the establishment of the research project: the formation of the working group where they explored the theme of poverty; and the Research Forum where academics and community partners came together to share knowledge and interdisciplinary ways forward.

Participatory mapping and engagement with urban water communities

This chapter focuses on the application of cultural ecosystems mapping as a participatory, co-produced visualisation and engagement method. Using a case study of the Lee Valley in London, it investigates how local communities relate to and engage with urban water environments using arts and humanities methodologies. Engaging people with issues around cultural ecosystem services through the interaction with large-scale maps of the local area helps to ground the more abstract issues of identity, connectivity, sense of place, emotional attachment, and spirituality, as well as overcome the traditional barriers to participation and inclusion at various spatial scales. Cultural mapping in particular helps to articulate the spatial and historical relationships and triggers debate over connectivity, governance, environmental justice, and both environmental and social change.

Emphasising mutual benefit: rethinking the impact agenda through the lens of Share Academy

This chapter examines the relationship between universities and museums in the UK. By focusing on two case studies, namely, Peckham Cultural Institute and the ‘Local roots/global routes: the legacies of British slave-ownership’ project, it illustrates some of the challenges and opportunities Share Academy has experienced. The early 21st century brought considerable changes to the way museums and universities were constituted and understood. Initiatives like the UK government-funded Renaissance in the Regions programme encouraged museums to broaden their audiences and think of themselves as lifelong educators, situating learning at the centre of museum practice. However, the chapter shows ongoing funding problems within the museum sector continued to contribute to an erosion of curatorial skills as specialist roles were replaced with more general posts.

The regulatory aesthetics of co-production

This chapter examines three case study projects that came out of University of Bristol and Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC) collaboration. Within those projects, it looks at the positioning of arts practices as knowledge producing, rather than instrumental or facilitative. The chapter addresses some of the issues around collaboration and regulation, and analyses how arts-based projects are shaped through institutional structures. KWMC and the University of Bristol have been collaborating across a number of research projects over the past decade. KWMC works with media artists to engage citizens often excluded from decision-making and research through exploring local, national, and international issues in order to co-produce and co-design the testing of ideas, products, and technologies.

Enabling conditions for communities and universities to work together: a journey of university public engagement

This chapter provides a context for the evolution of the concept of public engagement within the UK higher education sector focusing on a specific initiative: the Beacons for Public Engagement programme at University College London. Moreover, the chapter exposes the enabling conditions for communities and universities to work together; it recommends the five conditions to generate effective engagement, particularly through nuanced evaluation and support. In this case, evaluation and support can be seen as a pathway — bridging the gaps between theory and reality of engagement, between strategy and practice, and between the communities and academia — to ensure communities and universities to work together to create an impact on the university, research practice, communities, and ultimately, society.