ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationships with individuals and communities regarded as experiencing vulnerability and marginality, and includes their participation in research. There are different ways and levels of including the voice of communities, service users, and particularly groups traditionally perceived as vulnerable and marginalised in research: unexplored topics, inclusion of service users in research, and service users as researchers. Current approaches in social research encourage research that gets close to practice and is empowering in nature for those affected by the findings. The relationship between researchers and participants traditionally involves 'experts' posing questions they formulated for or about individuals and communities, and eventual dissemination of the knowledge they created to users. The contemporary view about collaborative and strength-based approaches to research encourages interconnectedness, a shared responsibility for appraising existing knowledge, and creating, validating, disseminating, and adopting knowledge. Collaboration and engagement are complex constructs that have generated a proliferation of material in recent popular and academic literature.
