[georgeburdell]

>lived experience

Not to derail your comment, but what is the purpose of prepending the word "lived" to the word "experience"? Is there experience that's not lived? It's strange to me to imply that knowledge gained from others telling you about something can be called "experience". I've seen the term pop up in particular circumstances in the last several years and it smacks to me of a dog whistle.

[silentkat]

It’s a form of contrastive reduplication. Used to emphasize the realness of the experience, versus like second hand experience like interviewing those who have the actual experience.

Also consider a phrase like “work work” versus “school work”. For someone who both works a paid job and goes to school, clarifying that they need to do “work work” makes sense.

[Retric]

You can experience things second hand. I wouldn’t object to someone saying ‘my experience with chemo’ when talking about their spouse’s disease. They can tell you not just the symptoms but what their insurance company did etc.

Still while watching a loved one deal with cancer is an intense experience and gives you way more insight than you had before you didn’t have the lived experience of having cancer, thus the distinction.

[neilk]

You're right that it's become a stock phrase, is somewhat redundant, and I used it without thinking. I strive to avoid such stock phrases (see Orwell's Politics and the English Language), so I thank you for drawing my attention to that.

I don't think it's a dog whistle. A dog whistle is when you signal something to a subgroup of your audience, using language that only they will understand. I have not seen "lived experience" used as a dog whistle.

I have seen it used to contrast official or elite discourse with what happens in one's daily life. For example, official statistics may show that crime is down in your area, but that does not comport with how you are now avoiding certain areas of town completely. Or a woman might be told that their company does not penalize them for taking maternity leave, but in practice they see they are sidelined. The "lived experience" trope is usually deployed when you start trusting your own biography, even the reactions of your own body, as a source of knowledge, opposing dominant narratives.

According to my very some brief research, it seems to have entered English from German, in the writings of Simone de Beauvoir.