Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Abstract

This article critically explores some implications of service user participation within qualitative social work research. There are three main sections which concentrate upon practical impediments, ethical implications and political dilemmas attached to a participative hegemony. Among other arguments it is proposed that participation has become part of complex, yet deeply problematic, political and ethical processes; in which early drives for user emancipation have been compromised and supplanted by a fused market and liberal-humanistic or democratic discourse dominated by rhetoric, and government, institutional and professional interests. For more independent social work researchers, or potential researchers including practitioners, the methodology is also often inaccessible and largely unattainable. The article encourages critical scepticism regarding participation, and suggests that it is unlikely it can counter inequitable relations between researchers and participants; indeed it may substantiate or aggravate them further. Some possible forms of counter-hegemonic participative resistance are briefly noted.