Theorising community participation: successful concept or empty buzzword?

What is community participation and how do we measure it? These questions are important as people with intellectual and developmental disabilities continue to experience exclusion, as policymakers design national funding schemes, and as researchers evaluate the success of interventions. A measurable definition of community participation enables people to know which interventions work, why, and where to target funding. Yet there may be good reasons to resist a universal definition of community participation. Building on work in feminist theory, this article shows the benefits of community participation as an essentially contested concept as contestation spurs innovative research. But even if contested concepts are good for researchers, are they good for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their families, and professionals in the field? Aligning the goals of research with practice may be an important yet unattainable goal.