six - The work of art in the age of mechanical co-production

Summary

We did not co-opt co-production, co-production co-opted us. (Blog, August 2014)

Introduction

In this chapter, we draw on a collaborative practice that has developed through working with people in communities and in universities. We argue that the practice of co-production requires a mode of closeness to the everyday and a recognition of different ways of being. An important part of co-production is that it involves recognising and reacting to relationships of power. In community contexts, it might mean shifting attention away from preferred ways of knowing and being to unfamiliar ways of knowing and being for all involved. We consider the potential for spatially situated methodologies to surface different kinds of knowledge and the mechanisms for this knowledge to impact on policy decisions (Soja, 2010).

We provide as our example an experience of co-producing a film with the Youth Service and a group of young people in Rotherham in order to carry a message to the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The film encountered problems of interpretation when presented to the DCLG as part of a broader cross-disciplinary report (Connelly et al, 2013). Here, we argue that the opening up and surfacing of situated knowledge can be problematic when transferred to a national or academic discourse. We suggest that a more malleable perspective as to what constitutes evidence has the potential to inform policy debates, and that this involves working with ways of knowing from the arts and humanities. This can shape the field and respond to different needs while remaining rigorous, and can open up a space for discussion. A consequence of this might involve crossing imagined and real boundaries of representation and opening up different representational choices in the research process. In turn, this can then make space for different voices to come to the fore and can raise issues of power, meaning and ambiguity for research and practice.

Arts and humanities, co-production and ways of knowing

Arts and humanities approaches draw on historically situated traditions and methods. The humanities might include historical, literary and hermeneutic approaches, while the arts might include practice-based research, as well as forms of creative practice.