In the last 40 years or so there has been a notable shift towards greater collaboration in research (and practice), and specifically in participatory research (PR), which has provided new opportunities for equalising, and even transposing, researcher–participant relationships and facilitating participant ‘voice’. As disciplinary boundaries have become more fluid, this change has been important in enabling researchers to work more effectively with participants in research who may be considered vulnerable, marginalised or socially excluded. However, despite this change, not all research that claims to work more collaboratively or inclusively with participants demonstrates clearly and rigorously how this is achieved and with reference to specific and clearly defined participatory methods and models. This book aims to address these issues, concepts and oversights by exploring in closer detail the interconnections between research methodology and praxis, and specifically PR that aims to facilitate and advance inclusive or ‘emancipatory’ methods and approaches with vulnerable or marginalised groups.

The association between vulnerability and participation is an important one, not least because people who may be defined as vulnerable or marginalised – whether innately, uniquely or circumstantially (see the discussion in Chapter One) – are often overlooked or denied full participation in research, either because they are considered ‘hard to reach’ or access in order to recruit successfully on to studies, or because the ethical considerations and procedures involved in doing so are seen as problematic, challenging, or even insurmountable. The result is that certain vulnerable or marginalised individuals or groups (specifically, for example, those who may be defined as multiply vulnerable) may be left out of studies altogether, and thus our knowledge and insights about their experiences and needs remains limited. However, ‘vulnerability’ is both a contested and mutable concept that is often determined by context and the perspective of those who are ‘doing the defining’, so to speak. Thus, both empirically, as well as with respect to contemporary health and social care discourses, vulnerability is an issue that needs to be addressed conceptually, philosophically and in practical terms (including ethically) – these issues are explored further in Chapter One.