We write this contribution as social researchers in the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the part of government responsible for housing, planning, local government, integration and communities policy for England. It is our role, as analysts, to bring evidence into the policy-making process.

This whole book has a wealth of insights and perspectives, which can contribute to a better understanding of communities and policy challenges at a local level. The content demonstrates the value of close and collaborative engagement with communities in a particular place to elicit, consider, negotiate and authentically represent the life worlds of people, using their own words and perspectives.

The mission of collaborative ethnography is to bring the academic research endeavour closer to communities, and to generate knowledge together, which is more authentic, representative and negotiated with communities. The questions of ‘Whose knowledge?’ and ‘Who speaks for whom?’ is an issue that should be asked of all research – and indeed all knowledge claims. In this book, we can see an emerging parity in the status of the different voices and knowledge presented.

We suggest that this example of collaborative ethnography could have even more impact if it were generated in collaboration with policy contributors, and it is notable that the local authority has worked in partnership with the ‘Imagine’ project in Rotherham. This points to other opportunities to bring together communities, local policy makers and academics in generating knowledge for future policy making.

Academic researchers play the key role in this collaborative enquiry process. They are strengthened by virtue of their institutional independence, methodological resources, and their theoretical frameworks and research tools. These can therefore provide partners with the means to sort and organise their personal experiences and accounts. The collective impact of such engagement is that people from different backgrounds may begin to find a common platform, take steps to challenge common understandings and misunderstandings, and even build a more shared future. This can contribute to the goals of supporting more integrated communities and of reducing community tensions – goals supported by many residents and by politicians of most political orientations.

How policy might fit into this more collaborative research endeavour is not clear-cut.