Abstract

In this commentary, I would like to do three things: First, reflect on Voronka’s engagement with the critique of experience as a foundational concept and her answers to this; second, comment on how we, as both activists and user/survivor researchers, engage with other critical discourses emerging from excluded groups; and finally, offer some of my own perspectives and history as a user/survivor researcher and activist in the United Kingdom to illustrate the first two points.I agree with much of what Voronka has to say about the risks of relying on ‘experience’ as an unquestioned category and how those risks are embodied today in the increasing reliance on terms such as ‘experts by experience’ and ‘people...