I have spent a long time working with different communities, and my commitment is always simple: sit, listen, support, act.
Sometimes things look like co-production, but they aren’t. Co-production is a continuous practice, it isn’t centered around one idea but centers everyone. It involves lived experience at a deep level. It says: we chose to listen not to protect our own reputations but because we stopped putting risk on those who were vulnerable. We empowered them by empowering ourselves to empower them. We levered our own privilege to make space and we made space for others who do the same. Because every community will tell you the same thing their problems started by organisations/people/projects behaving like the second coming and insisting on their own solutions and visions.
Stop consistently consulting. Do the actions the community asked for. In most of my time working with people, I get a working list of every institution, person, and project that failed a community. Quelle surprise, those that failed keep repeating their mistakes in technicolor. Yes you made a plan, so did everyone else that’s the core problem.
Co-production means making with everyone else, not leading from the top. It doesn’t mean shielding leaders from their own mistakes. Quite the opposite. It means giving all voices space, breaking down siloes, and protecting the people doing the work. Anything less simply mimics participation while repeating old mistakes and edging into exploitation.
Anything that mimics co-production with participation in the outputs is just more of the same problem communities have asked organizations and projects to stop doing. We don’t need people engaging and then imposing their own ideologies, no matter how well-meaning. That’s the compass. Yes, there might be winners and losers, but everyone gets a voice and a chance to hold accountability.
I’ve seen real co-production in the small details that surveys and outputs miss. In one project, I was standing next to a bank of new washing machines. The teacher excitedly told me they had bought them so children without electricity at home could wash their clothes, have breakfast, and be ready to learn. I spoke to a librarian filling in online forms for jobseekers. It wasn’t her role, but she had created a daily queue to support people because everything was online now. It’s these small acts that reveal the real work: you can’t know what questions to ask if you don’t know what’s actually happening. Yes, I cried that this had to even exist, but I held pride for the resilience and creativity they held. Here in cracks dandelions grow and turn into clocks.
Co-production is access, care, and hard work. Working co-produced means embodying a community and taking on risk. Speaking truth to power. Listening to every voice. Production means making. Co-production means making with everyone else. Without reflection, there is no co-production. Without all voices, there is no co-production.
People fall out. People don’t like other people. That’s true in all communities. But we don’t get to pick and choose who we invite to co-produce. We have to engage, navigate disagreement, and ultimately understand that we all are dissenters sometimes: and that’s a good thing. If you haven’t been a dissenting voice, I strongly advice you should.
Did we all grow together?
Did we give everyone a voice?
Did we enact the change people wanted?
Did we help open networks?
Did we break down siloes?
Did we protect those doing the work?
Did we actually do what the community wanted?
I used to work in a library, and one of my favorite archivists said: “This is where the real revolutionaries hide – here we are giving out free knowledge.” Free knowledge so people can form their own ideas. Spaces we encourage people to loiter in. Libraries are punk rock.
No more telling us what you did and want to do. Show me how you are listening. Let’s set the bar higher. Ask any artist: critique is a gift. Those who critique should be encouraged in participating.
And maybe, just maybe, when we do all this, we can finally stop thinking about what needs to be done and breathe in what needs to be done next. Then we can harvest real change.
Naomi Heath 