Resistance to epistemic silencing in social services: user tactics for enhancing responsiveness

Abstract

This article discusses user participation and social service responsiveness to citizen voices. Drawing on 57 qualitative interviews conducted in France, the evidence collected sheds light on the perception of social service users with regard to participatory processes, the obstacles that prevent them from obtaining institutional responses and the implicit and explicit tactics they mobilise in order to achieve change. The empirical material suggests that when official channels for participation are non-existent or fail to bring about effects, users may mobilise parallel tactics that include identifying institutional shortcuts to bypass unresponsive intermediaries, organising collectively to influence power dynamics, reclaiming participatory spaces and choosing to renounce social support altogether. These tactics are interpreted as a practice of agency and a form of resistance exercised by service users faced with epistemic silencing.

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