Community-based participatory research: strategies, approaches, and case-studies
New modes of knowledge production and de-colonising research are two key organising themes for a series of four workshops on community-based participatory research.
These workshops alert participants to how both ‘traditional’ (surveys, interviews) and more ‘innovative’ (photovoice, the facilitation of creative writing) social science research methods can be adopted within the context of community-based participatory research.
The workshops will be delivered by leading academics, activists, and practitioners who rely on participatory research methodology to research with seldom-heard communities in the UK and internationally.
These events are organised by Dr Kiril Sharapov (k.sharapov@napier.ac.uk) and are hosted by the Migration and Mobilities Research Network at Edinburgh Napier University. This series is supported by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences (SGSSS) through the SGSSS’s Pathway Training Fund.
All workshops require registration. Attendance is capped. Please register ONLY if you are intending to attend. CANCEL your attendance if your circumstances change and you are no longer able to attend.
Workshop details and registration
Delivered by: Professor Tina Cook and Matthew Dennis.
When: Monday, 6th June, 9.30 – 12.00 via WebEx (online).
Registration link: https://edinburghnapier.webex.com/edinburghnapier/j.php?RGID=r21687ce9a2a54f4b6933babb1d43d970
This session will explore the nature of participatory research and what it means to work in this way. Starting with and introduction to some of the diverse histories we will then look at accepted common principles for working in this way and the impact of these principles on research in practice.
During the second half of the morning, we will consider the notion of ‘method’ and the application of method in participatory research practices. You will be introduced to a case study that used participatory methods and hear from someone involved about their experience of it and the insights and learning from that work.
Tina Cook is Honorary Professor of Education at Liverpool Hope University. Throughout her career she has been active in advocating and developing inclusive and participatory approaches to research and practice. She was instrumental in establishing the International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research (ICPHR) and the UK Network for Participatory Research (UKPRN) and is Special Issues Editor with the international journal Educational Action Research. She has coordinated a number of different participatory projects with a focus on working with people who are more seldom heard and is a Director of the Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company and advisor for Inclusion North, both companies run by, for and with people with learning difficulties. She was a co-author of the book Participatory Research for Health and Wellbeing (2019) and authored a range of papers that consider research in practice eg
Cook, T (2021) Participatory Research: Its Meaning and Messiness, Beleidsonderzoek Online. doi: https://doi.org/10.5553/BO/221335502021000003001.
Cook T (2012) Where Participatory Approaches Meet Pragmatism in Funded (Health) Research: The Challenge of Finding Meaningful Spaces. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol 13(1), Art. 18 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-13.1.1783.
Matthew Dennis is a member of the Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company. He has extensive experience in participatory theatre for social justice and has used participatory methods for evaluating the impact of that work.
Delivered by: Professor Sarah Banks, Michelle Brear, Pradeep Narayanan, Pinky Shabangu
When: Monday, 13th June, 09.30 – 12.30 via WebEx (online).
Registration link: https://edinburghnapier.webex.com/edinburghnapier/j.php?RGID=rdb98d703ab8aca966e75614ba30abdfe
This session will explore the nature of ethics and some of the key ethical challenges in participatory research (e.g. relating to power, partnership, activism). We will look at key ethical principles underpinning PR, ask whether they are universally applicable, and look at some case examples from Eswatini and India in break out groups.
Sarah BANKS is Co-Director, Centre for Social Justice and Community Action and Professor, Department of Sociology, Durham University, UK. The Centre promotes participatory action research for social justice in partnership with community-based organisations. With the Centre and members of the International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research (ICPHR), she has developed ethical guidelines for participatory research and offers training/events for academic and community-based researchers. She has coordinated several participatory research projects, including research on debt, poverty and community development, and leads the Ethics Working Group of the ICPHR. She is co-editor of Ethics in Participatory Research for Health and Social Well-Being (2019) and Co-Producing Research: A Community Development Approach (2019), and co-author of Participatory Research for Health and Social Well-Being (2019).
Michelle Brear is a research associate at Monash University (Australia) and University of Johannesburg (South Africa). She is a public health social scientist with a special interest in designing and implementing workshop-based approaches to facilitate the participation of lay-people in research, and using ethnographic methods to document the process and outcomes of their participation in research. Michelle’s research in communities marginalised by poverty in southern Africa has provided insights about ethical issues in PHR such as equity, autonomy and benefits sharing. It has been published in a series of articles in international health, development and methodological journals including Qualitative Health Research, Global Public Health and Sustainability Science.
Pradeep Narayanan is Director, Research, Praxis Institute for Participatory Practices, New Delhi, India. He is a practitioner of participatory methods and approaches. He works on Participatory monitoring and evaluation with community mobilisation, ethics, child rights and bonded labour as themes. He co-created India Responsible Business Index, which focuses on social inclusion in business practices. He is Honorary Fellow, Department of Sociology, Durham University, UK; and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Community Development Journal. He is also Member, Core Committee on Business and Human Rights, National Human Rights Commission. With Tom Thomas, he co-edited the book, Participation Pays: Pathways for Post 2015.
Pinky Shabangu started her research career in 2012 as a community-based co-researcher and activist in a PHR project in the rural community in Eswatini where she was born. Since then, she has pursued her own tertiary studies and worked as a research assistant, in a role that has enabled her to reflect on and write about her experiences being a community researcher. This has enabled her to link ethical issues in Participatory Health Research including the ethics of care to all ethical moments which occurred when she was a community-based researcher. She has a particular interest in social research, particularly about gender issues, women and children’s health and development in the Global South.
Delivered by: Dr Debra Allnock, Dr Camille Warrington and member of Young Researchers Advisory Panel (TBC).
When: Tuesday, 21st June, 09.30 – 12.00.
Registration link:
https://edinburghnapier.webex.com/edinburghnapier/j.php?RGID=r2e4fdb392aa148c14132a5603a008da2
This session will explore case studies of undertaking participatory research work in the context of covid – drawing on both the work of the Safer Young Lives Research Centre’s Young Research Advisory Panel (YRAP) and a range of project specific participatory research experiences undertaken by the team and partners during Covid-19 both in the UK and LMIC with young people affected by forms of violence and abuse.
It will consider additional challenges and opportunities posed by remote working and their relationship to ethics and participant safety. Examples of strategies for dealing with some of these challenges will be shared and time spent considering how they may be adapted in different cultural contexts.
Dr Debra Allnock is a Senior Research Fellow at the Safer Young Lives Research Centre at the University of Bedfordshire. She is currently seconded to Norfolk Constabulary leading research within the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme. Debbie has recently co-led, along with Dr Warrington, participatory research with young people who have experienced sexual abuse in adolescence exploring their mental health and emotional wellbeing needs. Her expertise is in the field of child protection, safeguarding and child sexual abuse, as well as young people’s engagement and experiences with the police.
Dr Camille Warrington is a Senior Research fellow at the Safer Young Lives Research Centre, University of Bedfordshire where she has led and developed the research centres work on participatory research practice. The centre’s work focuses specifically on adolescence and extra familial harm and has a particular focus on young people’s experiences of welfare and justice responses to sexual violence. She set up and developed the centres Young Research Advisory Panel (YRAP) which aims to ensure youth and lived experience perspectives inform research and policy relating to sexual violence in both the UK and internationally. She has led a range of participatory research projects including those using creative methods focusing on justice, welfare and mental wellbeing after sexual violence in childhood and adolescence. Camille also works at the University of Edinburgh Social Work department where she has supported participatory research relating to children and domestic abuse.
TBC: member of Young Researchers Advisory Panel.
Delivered by: Dr Louise Warwick-Booth & Susan Coan.
When: Wednesday, 29th June, 10.00 – 12.00.
Registration link: https://edinburghnapier.webex.com/edinburghnapier/j.php?RGID=r5802816b4984bd6f8afea1531fefa91f
This session will explore the principles and values underpinning participatory approaches to analysis. We will identify several ‘types’ of participatory analysis for consideration. We will outline how collaboration can work within analysis approaches, and discuss issues with this aspect of the research process. We will use breakout rooms to generate debate and conversation about the challenges of researching gendered violence in the global south, reflecting what this means for analysis and interpretation.
Dr Louise Warwick-Booth is a Reader and Associate Director of the Centre for Health Promotion Research. Louise teaches on a range of modules within the UK, and overseas including sociology, health policy, research methods, community health and global health. She leads a range of research and evaluation projects. Louise’s research projects are diverse and include commissioned evaluation work within the voluntary and statutory sector. Her expertise relates to the evaluation of health promotion interventions with vulnerable populations, including women experiencing domestic abuse. Louise has published several textbooks such as Social Inequality 3rd Edition (2022), Creating Participatory Research (2021 with colleagues), and Contemporary Health Studies: An Introduction 2nd Edition (2021).
Susan Coan is a Research Officer in the Centre for Health Promotion Research. She works on a wide variety of health-related projects. Susan has a great deal of experience researching with marginalised groups of people, for example, victims of domestic abuse and people living in areas experiencing high levels of deprivation. She has expertise in using participatory and creative methods to support people’s involvement in and empowerment through research. Susan also leads the CommUNIty initiative. CommUNIty supports the development of sustainable partnerships between community and voluntary organisations and Leeds Beckett University, with an emphasis on activity that promotes improvements to community health and wellbeing. The overarching goal of community is to find new, more effective ways to improve health and reduce health inequalities in communities.