Poster 26: En casestudie av samskaping med innvandrere i rurale områder

Co-creation with vulnerable users requires the ability to develop physical, social, and emotional ‘space’ for co-creation.

Background: Co-creation and co-production have become key concepts in public sector reform strategies in recent years (Røiseland & Lo, 2019; Voorberg et al. 2015). However, knowledge is still needed on how to facilitate co-creation with so-called vulnerable citizens, requiring the ability to challenge power structures and manoeuvring of diverse constraints (Bast et al.,2021; Donetto et al., 2015). This paper addresses the practical details of co-creation, based on a participatory action research project dealing with challenges of social inclusion of migrants in rural communities. The broader debates on refugees and international migration as complex and wicked problems forms an important backdrop for our research (Geuijen et al. 2017), but this paper focuses specifically on how to facilitate co-creation processes with newly arrived migrants at community levels. The paper contributes as such to the literature on co-creation and co-production with vulnerable users (see for instance Park, 2019 and Røhnebæk & Bjerck, 2021).

Methods: The study was conducted as part of a comprehensive research project on migration impact in rural and mountain regions in Europe, funded through EU's Horizon 2020 research programme. This paper is based on the action research activities carried out in two mountain regions in Innlandet County, Norway. The action research consisted of planning and implementation of world-café workshops organized as two-day events in each region, with migrants and participants from the public, private and third sectors. The workshops invited diverse participants to co-create ideas and propose solutions on how to strengthen social inclusion of migrants in the local communities. The data consists of detailed observations of the co-creation sessions, and follow-up focus groups interviews with selected participants.

Results: The paper presents and discusses the results of the action research in two ways. First, it presents and categorizes the concrete ideas produced through the workshops (outputs). Next, the paper presents and discusses results related to the process, based on observation data from the detailed monitoring of co-creation processes, and findings from the follow-up interviews allowing for post-reflections on participants’ experiences with co-creation.

Conclusions: Findings from the study indicate that co-creation with vulnerable users relies on ‘sensitizing’ (Dietrich et al., 2017) and the creation of ‘spaces’ (physical, social, and emotional) that enable participants to share experiences, knowledge and ideas despite social hierarchies and practical barriers for participation.