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https://theconversation.com/lived-experience-is-often-dismissed-but-we-should-recognise-it-as-a-form-of-expertise-285356>
"Institutions increasingly invite people to contribute their lived experience.
Government agencies appoint patients to advisory panels and call on communities
for their views on policy. Health New Zealand employs peer support workers and
universities seek lived experience in research. These initiatives acknowledge
that lived experience matters.
But there is a catch. In many cases, it is still treated as perspective or
testimony rather than as a form of expertise.
Research, professional training and technical knowledge continue to sit at the
top of institutional hierarchies. Lived experience may be listened to, but it
is rarely granted the same level of authority.
This matters because lived experience is not simply a personal story. It is
knowledge developed through ongoing learning that emerges from engagement with
systems, institutions and the realities of everyday life.
People navigating psychiatric systems develop understandings of coercion, risk
and care that clinical training cannot fully capture. Disabled people develop
expertise in access, interdependence and institutional workarounds often absent
from policy.
People living through poverty, racism, migration systems or violence develop
deep practical knowledge of how institutions function, because life depends on
it.
This knowledge is not anecdotal. It is formed through sustained engagement with
systems that shape everyday life – and it should be recognised as its own form
of knowledge."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
