Exploring what the Notion of ‘Lived Experience’ Offers for Social Policy Analysis

Abstract

In this article, we suggest that social policy may be on the cusp of a large-scale adoption of the notion of lived experience. However, within social policy and allied disciplines, the growing use of the term ‘lived experience’ is unaccompanied by discussion of what it may mean or imply. We argue that now is a good time to consider what this term could mean for social policy analysis. The peculiarities of Anglo-centric usage of the broader term ‘experience’ are explored, before we identify and discuss several roots from which understandings of ‘lived experience’ as a concept and a research strategy have grown: namely, phenomenology, feminist writing and ethnography. Drawing on multiple historical and contemporary international literatures, we identify a set of dilemmas and propositions around: assumed authenticity, questioning taken-for-grantedness, intercorporeality, embodied subjectivity; political strategies of recognition, risks of essentialising, and immediacy of unique personal experiences versus inscription of discourse. We argue that lived experience can inform sharp critique and offer an innovative window on aspects of the ‘shared typical’. Our central intention is to encourage and frame debate over what lived experience could mean theoretically and methodologically within social policy contexts and what the implications may be for its continued use.

Welfare Conditionality in Lived Experience: Aggregating Qualitative Longitudinal Research

“…(Neil, Jobseeker, Welcond, Wave C) Whilst sanctions are designed to make non-compliance uncomfortable, what both studies show consistently is that this discomfort a) goes far beyond the realms of toleration, often involving acute suffering and sparking unnecessary crises (including suicidal thoughts) that have wide effects for claimants, their dependents and family and friends; b) is long-lasting and accumulating; and c) undermines the ability to look for or secure paid employment. A strong 'shared typical' (McIntosh and Wright, 2018) in the lived experience of conditionality was the extreme and intractable suffering related to experiences of sanctions.What was also evident, over time, and across two diverse samples of benefit claimants, was the extent to which poverty was a solid motif central to the pattern of 'shared typical'(McIntosh and Wright, 2018) lived experiences of conditionality. The common experience of transitioning from outof-work poverty to in-work poverty as individuals from both studies entered (and often subsequently left) insecure, poorly paid and temporary employment is a challenge to the legitimacy and popular justifications for conditionality.…”

Occupant behaviour as a fourth driver of fuel poverty (aka warmth & energy deprivation)

“…Empirically, the paper adds valuable new evidence through the analysis of longitudinal rather than cross-sectional data, the use of a subjective or ‘consensual measure’ of fuel poverty (Thomson et al, 2017), and the incorporation of a wider range of occupant-related variables in the analysis (Huebner et al, 2015). The paper examines new questions including: whether housing improvements are effective in reducing the ‘lived experience’ of fuel poverty (McIntosh and Wright, 2018); how movements into and out of fuel poverty compare; what household, housing and social factors are associated with these fuel poverty dynamics, and whether those factors are the same in each direction. The paper contributes to policy debate by opening up discussion about: what aspects of occupant behaviour might be acted upon if traditional housing interventions are ineffective; the value of adopting more than one type of measure of fuel poverty; and the need to expand the notion of vulnerability as currently contained within UK policy.…”

Open Policy Making in the UK – to Whom Might Policy Formulation be ‘Opening Up’?

“…Even more ethnographic research seeking to boost empathy and complicate the 'shared typical ' (McIntosh and Wright, 2019), gathering deeper information on lived experiences, cannot be considered synonymous with collective decision making in policy nor what critical design scholars term participatory design (Kimbell, 2019). Kimbell and Bailey (2017) highlight a contradiction within OPM which is that policy makers, even when proclaiming 'openness', may wish to 'limit engagement with publics to avoid unwanted attention, contestation or politicisation'.…”