Interactive social science in practice: New approaches to the production of knowledge and their implications

Working in a unit doing policy relevant research on poverty, disability, health and social care necessarily involves interaction with a range of users. Some of the most difficult challenges are posed by disabled activists, who assert that the methods conventionally used by social scientists are exploitative and oppressive; they make demands ranging from sharing power more equally in research to shifting power completely to the ‘user’ group. These are difficult and threatening assertions for social scientists to deal with. They require us to take stock honestly of what we are about, without ceding our critical faculties. Social scientists need to develop a common language for the skills interactive research calls for and discussion of how to cultivate them. They need to talk about the approaches that work well and less well in different settings and with different stakeholders. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.