Co-designing for a better future: Re-imagining the modernist dream at Park Hill, Sheffield

This chapter describes a project in which residents shared their visions for making themselves at home in Park Hill flats. The research team conducted a series of ‘events’ with residents, all aimed at exchanging views about the ways in which it was possible to live within the space. Architecturally, Park Hill offers a very different view of how architecture could be, and the socialist vision of the modernist Park Hill Estate in Sheffield was very much of its time. Now subject to urban re-development, we consider, with residents, the potential of Park Hill for a different kind of urban living, that embraces design as a mode of being.

Co-producing research: A community development approach

This is the introductory chapter of the book Co-producing research: A community development approach. It introduces the co-editors and explains the genesis of the book, based on the learning from a complex community-university research project, Imagine – connecting communities through research. It outlines a community development approach to the co-production of research, described as: research undertaken collaboratively by several parties that values multiple perspectives and voices; contributes to creating and developing communities of place, interest and identity; builds collective capacity for action; and works towards social change. It offers an overview of the chapters in the book and argues for an interdisciplinary collaborative approach.

On not doing co-produced research: The methodological possibilities and limitations of co-producing research with participants in a prison

To what extent is it possible to adhere to the principles of co-produced research with communities when the community involved resides in a prison? This chapter explores this question in the context of a science fiction research project which took place in a UK category D men’s prison in 2014-2015. The researcher worked with participants to form a science fiction film discussion group in which films were used to frame conversations about hope and alternative futures in global, community and individual contexts. The impetus for the project was underpinned by two ideas: the exploration of imaginative and speculative representations of utopia; and a methodological aspiration towards the application of arts-based methods to research with a community. There were significant methodological tensions involved in attempting to implement a co-produced methodology in a prison setting. In practice, co-production was jettisoned in favour of a more traditional methodology at the planning, permissions and implementation stages. This chapter charts the course of the decision not to pursue co-production in this context and it explores the reasons why that decision was made. Specific methodological challenges involved in working in a prison are explored and it is argued that sometimes co-production is not appropriate in some settings. It is also suggested that, despite these challenges, there is an argument for the implementation of co-production in prison contexts if the understanding of co-produced methodologies can stretch across projects.

Conclusion: Imagining different communities and making them happen

This is the final chapter of Co-producing research: A community development approach. It draws together key messages and learning from previous chapters about a complex community-university research project, Imagine – connecting communities through research. It outlines the challenges and rewards of a community development approach to co-producing research, including working with diversity and difference and being prepared to be flexible, creative and patient. It ends by discussing a final writing retreat to encapsulate key achievements and learning from the project, ending with the advice to ‘embrace the unexpected’.

‘Who controls the past controls the future’: Black history and community development

What role does “Black history” play in community development? This chapter discusses how Black and Asian minority ethnic (BAME) communities have been excluded from contributing to national and local histories, depriving them of resources that would enable them to develop different futures in the context of a British historical narrative dominated by whiteness. It focuses on the intersection of history and community development and how community-based organisations have worked in collaboration with the University of Huddersfield (in West Yorkshire in the north of England). The chapter suggests that there are advantages in the co-production of historical knowledge, one of which is that a collaborative approach enables greater inclusion and diversity of views, especially as there is a lack of ethnic diversity amongst academic staff at British universities.

Co-production as a new way of seeing: Using photographic exhibitions to challenge dominant stigmatising discourses

This chapter discusses how a research project focussing on historic regeneration in the Hillfields area of Coventry, UK, led to a co-produced photographic exhibition which challenged dominant narratives of ‘territorial stigmatisation’ (Wacquant, 2007) by attracting positive media and policy attention. The chapter examines the difficult but rewarding process of co-producing this exhibition as a new body of knowledge and a way of seeing historic Hillfields’ life from the situated perspectives of the community partners in the project. This process is assessed as an exploration of how to illustrate historic and competing community narratives. By elevating local knowledge in the public sphere, community partners benefited from positive outcomes. The chapter concludes that this sensitive and emergent approach may challenge both local perceptions of academia and methodological issues when working in and with communities.

How does arts practice inform a community development approach to the co-production of research?

This chapter draws on arts practice to discuss ways in which artists have collectively re-imagined better futures. It takes the form of a conversation, which has been edited to reflect the ideas of four people who work in the arts with a focus on how the arts can support transformational change in communities. The conversation is situated within theory that looks a the role of arts in communities, and relates to the field of socially engaged arts practice. The role of the arts in effecting change is debated.

Between research and community development: Negotiating a contested space for collaboration and creativity

This chapter discusses the relationship between co-produced research and community development. In particular, it addresses longstanding debates about whether certain forms of co-produced research (especially participatory action research), are, in fact, indistinguishable from community development. This question is explored with reference to Imagine North East, a co-produced research project based in North East England, which was part of a larger programme of research on civic participation (Imagine – connecting communities through research). The chapter offers a critical analysis of three elements of Imagine North East: an academic-led study of community development from the 1970s to the present; starting with the national Community Development Projects in Benwell and North Shields; a series of community development projects undertaken by local community-based organisations; and the challenges and outcomes of a joint process of reflection and co-inquiry. It considers the role of co-produced research in challenging stigma, celebrating place and developing skills and community networks – all recognisable as community development processes and outcomes. It also discusses the difficult process of bringing together a disparate group of people in a co-inquiry group; the time taken to develop identities as practitioner-researchers; and the skills required to engage in a kind of ‘collaborative reflexivity’ whereby members of the group critically reflected together on the group’s role and dynamics.

Community-university partnership research retreats: A productive force for developing communities of research practice

This chapter explores the challenges of fostering learning across traditional academic and non-academic boundaries when conducting participatory research in community-university partnerships. The authors were all active collaborators in the Imagine – Social programme. They focus on the role of research retreats in including a diversity of partners in this long-term research project. After introducing the key terms of ‘community of practice’ and ‘retreats’, the chapter describes the types of boundaries that were addressed and the challenges that were faced in crossing them. Next the authors present their approach to crossing these boundaries by cultivating a community of practice through these retreats. The stages of development of a community of practice (Wenger et al, 2002) are then set out and are reframed to focus on boundary issues drawing on the successive retreats as illustrations. Finally, the chapter closes by identifying the key enablers that supported the development of such a boundary-crossing community.

A radical take on co-production? Community partner leadership in research

This chapter explores the process of a community-based researcher and two academics working together on one of the sub-projects of the wider Imagine project described in Chapter 1. This sub-project was a collaboration between the research officer at Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, and two academics at the University of Brighton. Many research collaborations are based on the notion that the research expertise is situated within the university, with community partners providing practical expertise. This chapter is about inverting this dynamic, with the community partner becoming the lead researcher. We reflect on our own experience of working together in the broader context of the findings of our research study and on how Community-University partnership working can contribute to community development especially, through the subsequent actions of the community partners.