Equal Collaboration in HUSK

Abstract

Equality emerges as a key value for collaboration between academics, practitioners, and users in HUSK. The aim of the author in this analysis is to explore how the norm of equality is reflected in the HUSK projects, the strategies used to promote equality, and issues that emerge when equality is challenged by the participants involved. Particular attention is given to the roles of the service users who saw themselves as being “in the same boat” as all the other HUSK project participants. Strategies to promote equality include the redistribution of tasks carried out by participants and serious recognition of the different contributions made by the participants. In addition to focusing on the role of collaborative research and shared work, the author draws upon the moral philosophy elaborated by Skjervheim and the meaning of vulnerability elaborated by the phenomenological moral philosopher Løgstrup.

Keywords::

• Equality
• collaboration
• participant
• shared context
• and counter-balancing

Notes

^1. Letter from Directorate of Health and Social Affairs: Experiment with new forms of collaboration between research, education, practice, and users April 21, 2006.

^2. The term academics refers to both educators and researchers.