Elsevier

Futures

Volume 142, September 2022, 102999
Futures

Is co-production a ‘good’ concept? Three responses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2022.102999Get rights and content
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open access

Highlights

  • Co-production’s value to future studies depends on its conceptual ‘goodness’.

  • There are different approaches to assessing if co-production is a ‘good’ concept.

  • We identify three distinct approaches: clarification, elucidation and provocation.

  • Each differs in assessing the conceptual meaning, purpose and value of co-production

  • We show there is value in more pluralistic ways of conceptualising co-production.

Abstract

Co-production refers to a reciprocal process of exchange between diverse stakeholders, in order to generate outcomes that are only possible because of this deliberate intersection of difference. Whilst the concept of co-production appeals within and for futures studies, foresight and anticipatory politics, its conceptual messiness has been widely critiqued. Drawing upon an integrative literature review of co-production and concept formation in the social sciences, we identify three approaches that scholars of co-production have sought to mobilise in order to address this critique. Each approach offers a different perspective on what makes a ‘good’ social scientific concept: clarification, elucidation and provocation. Our analysis illuminates the value of holding different approaches to conceptualisation in tension, as a means of developing a richer and more contingent understanding of co-production to future studies’ debates. In doing so, we open up new conceptual imaginaries for co-production and its prefigurative value within futures studies, offering more pluralistic ways of knowing in a context of radical uncertainty

Keywords

Co-production
Conceptualisation
Buzzwords
Social science

Data Availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.

Cited by (0)

1

Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place, 1–7 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7ZG.

2

Urban Institute, ICOSS, University of Sheffield, 219 Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP.

3

Room 4.062 Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.