The coproduction myth

I thought I'd offer to help a fellow student out yesterday. She's doing research about coproduction and, like the great research student she is, she wanted help to test an interview schedule.

I reckon I know a fair bit about coproduction (as part of Barod I've even led workshops about it called Shared Space). I'm opinionated, which always makes for a feisty semi-structured interview, and if we can't help each other out as fellow students then the world is a sorrier place than I believe it is.

What I hadn't expected was to learn something new about how I think about coproduction. Or, more accurately, talking together crystallised something I'd almost but not quite got round to thinking.

The interview was going fine from my point of view. The questions made sense. I could answer openly and honestly. I could have gone down a number of different avenues which suggested the interview schedule would work for anyone. I could hear in my answers that she was getting key information out of me quite naturally.

And then came "The Question".  I can't even remember what it was. But the way the question was phrased assumed that coproduction is a tool or process. And the question stumped me. I did a good goldfish impersonation.

Cue: Pause interview; Step out of roles as interviewee/interviewer; talk as fellow researchers about why I was stumped by the question.

Answer: I believe coproduction is a relationship, not a process or tool.

The moment I realised that, so much clicked into place about the coproduction myth. We talk about coproduction, we say it is happening. Public services tell us we are now going to coproduce. And most of what goes by the name of coproduction doesn't feel any different from good old fashioned user involvement, public engagement - pick the once-trendy label of your choice.

And perhaps that's because, if you try to codify coproduction and turn it into a tool or a process, you are almost inevitably commodifying it and making it into a "thing" that exists independent of the people involved. And if it is a "thing", then people don't need to change and relationships don't need to change - you just need to chuck this "thing" called coproduction into the mix and, hey presto, you now have something that has some of the hallmarks of coproduction but none of the feel or transformational impact of what I would call coproduction. And we end up with the myth of coproduction because we believe in the wonderful transforming concept of coproduction but however hard we search, it seems always just beyond our grasp.

If coproduction is a relationship, then we need to think about how people relate (and how people-in-systems relate to people-in-a-different-system). And how we relate is largely influenced by status, power, having things in common, a shared purpose, ability to communicate - and whether we like and trust each other enough to be open, honest and transparent in our relationship and determined enough to tackle the differences between our systems that make it difficult for us to work together.

So, huge thank you to KESS (Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship) for funding my research and my fellow student's research because that's how we ended up having the encounter that resulted in this blog.

And if you love the thought of coproduction, check out Shared Spaces and get thinking about how you relate to people rather than what you can do to/with them.