“I Stood By and Watched”: An Autoethnography of Stakeholder Participation in a Living Lab

Abstract

to the by providing an account of my as a participation researcher with stakeholder participation in a living lab in the participated in a yearlong project on ensuring freedom for residents in a closed psychogeriatric ward. Using three key moments from that experience, I illustrate why participation was the intention, was harder to in practice. Participation processes and living labs are situated in specific social and physical contexts. I discuss the “situatedness” of living labs and propose to reconceptualize them as “situated practices”: the value of a living lab lies in the processes of work it conducts on specific innovations situated in its local context. A key conclusion is that providing narrative descriptions of living lab projects, with attention to situatedness and stakeholder participation, can provide invaluable examples, insights, and inspirations for other in the field.