ABSTRACT

Vulnerable citizens often depend on volunteers or others to translate their needs into relevant concerns for policy makers. This is particularly so in the context of co-production of public service provision. However, knowledge of how this translation works in practice is scarce. Based on a qualitative study of co-production activities targeting vulnerable elderly citizens and refugees, this paper explores volunteers’ translations of citizen needs and identifies two forms of failure: entangled translations fail because municipal staff suspect volunteers of justifying volunteer interests as citizen needs, while restricted translations fail to justify citizen needs as collective concerns because volunteers draw excessively on anecdotal formats.

摘要

弱势公民通常依靠志愿者或其他人将他们的需求转化为政策制定者的相关关切。在公共服务提供的共同生产的背景下尤其如此。然而，关于这种翻译在实践中如何运作的知识却很少。基于针对弱势老年公民和难民的联合生产活动的定性研究，本文探讨了志愿者对公民需求的翻译，并确定了两种形式的失败：纠缠翻译失败是因为市政工作人员怀疑志愿者将志愿者利益视为公民需求，而受限制的翻译无法证明公民的需求是集体关注的问题，因为志愿者过度使用轶事形式。