Developing knowledge through participation and collaboration: Research as mutual learning processes (original) (raw)
Related papers
Written Communication, 2000
Most discussions of qualitative research organize research methodologies according to their place in a set of research paradigms identified by epistemological and ontological commitments. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu, the authors argue for a theory of research as social practice in which researchers' purposes are determined not by philosophical paradigms but by their commitments to specific forms of social action. The authors offer a model of research practices organized according to their relationship to social power rather than abstract paradigms. From this perspective, the dilemmas presented by recent postmodern critiques of representation, the inclusion and co-optation of participants' voices, and validity become a question of ethics. The authors explore the problems of postmodern ethics and qualitative research through the work of Bauman.
The chapter is an analytic review of the five core chapters of the book, with the focus on ways researchers conceptualize discursive processes and opportunities for social change through those processes.
(Un)doing collaboration: reflections on the practice of collaborative research
2013
Collaboration is often put forward as a programmatic ideal, or invoked as an antidote to conventional research methods in the humanities and social sciences. Collaboration also increasingly features in the lexicon of 'innovation ', 'interdisciplinarity', 'partnership', 'engagement' and 'impact' that accompanies the restructuring of Higher Education as well as the production, circulation and consumption of knowledge. But despite this turn to 'collaboration' and the set of tensions it generates, there has been comparatively little sustained attention to the actual practices of doing collaborative research. In this Working Paper, researchers from the CRESC Encounters Collaborative reflect on their experiences of collaborative research, offering a series of case studies that describe research with actors ranging from City Councils to a feminist community allotment, from Eurostat to intraacademic projects. Through these case studies we unpack the research process in ways that serve to disrupt conventional representations of research as a linear, sequential activity resulting in a set of knowable outputs. Rather we find that collaborative research often requires that the definition of research problems, methods or outputs be left open or remain undetermined, whilst at the same time posing questions about the authorship and ownership of knowledge production that are often otherwise foreclosed in conventional research. Furthermore, via an analysis of our research encounters, we find that the relationships that underpin collaborative research are often sustained through the production and exchange of particular kinds of 'gifts', which may be missed in contemporary regimes of 'impact'. In these ways, the accounts presented in this Paper throw into relief the artefactual character of representations of research that as academics we are often incited to construct. Yet, by paying attention to the mundane and opportunistic ways in which collaborative research often proceeds (or fails to proceed), the case studies also serve to complicate a reified opposition between conventional and collaborative research. Rather, we find that the distinctiveness of collaboration lies less in a deviation from some kind of imagined, non-collaborative research process, than in the way it forces a reflexive acknowledgment of the emergent quality of knowledge in research relationships across time and space. 1 The CRESC Encounters Collaborative is made up of current and former CRESC researchers: . Collaborative work also poses challenges for the conventions of authorship. To elaborate: This paper was inspired by conversations amongst this group since the summer of 2012. The introduction and conclusion were formulated by Hannah Knox, Niamh Moore and Mike Upton, and written primarily by Mike Upton. Case studies were provided by the researchers named at the beginning of each section. Further information about the work of the CRESC Encounters Collaborative can be found at www.cresc.ac.uk/our-research/cresc-encounterscollaborative.
2012
This paper presents a new methodological approach, entitled "MINGA", developed with the goal of achieving a more equitable working relationship between the researcher and her/his research subjects while also reaching a deeper understanding of the reality being researched. The question of what type of representations we produce as researchers, and with what consequences, has been addressed for some time now by post-colonial and feminist academics. Such critiques have been valuable in highlighting the need to generate new research practices that go beyond representation as the sole domain of researchers, and have thus contributed to "decolonizing" research methods. At the same time have there have been more efforts to theorize than to developing and implementing critical and collaborative methodologies. MINGA proposes a new approach, consisting of establishing research partnerships with the studied subjects, which are oriented by the principles of codetermination and reciprocity. The term MINGA was chosen to highlight parallels with the ancestral practice of "minga", dating back to Inca times, of the collective production of goods for the benefit of the community, without monetary exchange and on the basis of reciprocity. The methodology MINGA is therefore a form of co-production of knowledge where the mutual benefit is the expansion of the social and cultural capital of all of the research partners. Developing such methodologies requires first an exhaustive and critical reflection on the barriers that are to be overcome to create more egalitarian research relationships. Because few efforts have been made to identify them and think about how they could be dismantled, these barriers still remain invisible to some academics. After outlining a typology of such barriers, the article describes the guiding principles of the MINGA methodology. It ends by discussing the challenges and potentials of this new methodological approach.
Governance Through Participation: An Inquiry into the Social Relations of Community-Based Research
2017
Community-based research (CBR) is consistently held up as a benchmark for socially just knowledge production. Calls for the intensification of and further institutionalization of CBR indicate the discursive value of community-engaged research, but its material effects are unclear. CBR's claims to egalitarian, emancipatory research relations and outcomes remain largely uninterrogated and the participative practices and collaborative relations under documented and theorized. This study of the social relations of CBR theorizes participatory research as a site of governance. Specifically, I inquire into how the social relations of CBR are governed through affect, participatory practices, colonial processes of subjectification, institutional arrangements, as well as resisted as counter governmental practices. I draw on poststructural, postcolonial and affect theories in dialogue with the critical reflections of twenty-nine academic, community-vi can be ordered and measured. First, a shout out to my MSW friends:
2010
In 2009 the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern Queensland began an ambitious agenda to improve both the quality and the quantity of its research outcomes. It encouraged the establishment of small, informal research teams with some financial incentives to support a research agenda. In this chapter, three members of one such team consider their experiences of research collaboration in relation to collective mindfulness, a term that one of the researchers used during a focused conversation. The analysis articulates and then synthesises the authors" understandings and experiences of the term, which is posited as a useful theoretical and practical device for helping research teams to maximise their outcomes and at the same time to contribute positively to relevant social action.
Co-producing Research
This chapter discusses the relationship between co-produced research and community development. In particular, it addresses longstanding debates about whether certain forms of co-produced research (especially participatory action research), are, in fact, indistinguishable from community development. This question is explored with reference to Imagine North East, a co-produced research project based in North East England, which was part of a larger programme of research on civic participation (Imagineconnecting communities through research). The chapter offers a critical analysis of three elements of Imagine North East: an academic-led study of community development from the 1970s to the present; starting with the national Community Development Projects in Benwell and North Shields; a series of community development projects undertaken by local community-based organisations; and the challenges and outcomes of a joint process of reflection and co-inquiry. It considers the role of co-produced research in challenging stigma, celebrating place and developing skills and community networks all recognisable as community development processes and outcomes. It also discusses the difficult process of bringing together a disparate group of people in a co-inquiry group; the time taken to develop identities as practitioner-researchers; and the skills required to engage in a kind of 'collaborative reflexivity' whereby members of the group critically reflected together on the group's role and dynamics.
BMC Medical Education
Background: Knowledge translation and evidence-based practice have relied on research derived from clinical trials, which are considered to be methodologically rigorous. The result is practice recommendations based on a narrow view of evidence. We discuss how, within a practice environment, in fact individuals adopt and apply new evidence derived from multiple sources through ongoing, iterative learning cycles. Discussion: The discussion is presented in four sections. After elaborating on the multiple forms of evidence used in practice, in section 2 we argue that the practitioner derives contextualized knowledge through reflective practice. Then, in section 3, the focus shifts from the individual to the team with consideration of social learning and theories of practice. In section 4 we discuss the implications of integrative and negotiated knowledge exchange and generation within the practice environment. Namely, how can we promote the use of research within a teambased, contextualized knowledge environment? We suggest support for: 1) collaborative learning environments for active learning and reflection, 2) engaged scholarship approaches so that practice can inform research in a collaborative manner and 3) leveraging authoritative opinion leaders for their clinical expertise during the shared negotiation of knowledge and research. Our approach also points to implications for studying evidence-informed practice: the identification of practice change (as an outcome) ought to be supplemented with understandings of how and when social negotiation processes occur to achieve integrated knowledge. Summary: This article discusses practice knowledge as dependent on the practice context and on social learning processes, and suggests how research knowledge uptake might be supported from this vantage point.
People's Knowledge and Participatory Action Research: Escaping the white-walled labyrinth
2016
(edited as part of People's Knowledge Editorial Collective, the book has several authors). The world of research run by universities and other institutions is dominated by a culture that is white, upper-middle class and male. When people from communities that have previously been excluded are asked to take part in research – even participative research -- they are seldom able to do so on equal terms. Instead of being supported to draw on the expertise that they have gained from their life experience, they find themselves trapped in a ‘white-walled labyrinth’. This book opens up a new realm of understanding, one that has been created by authors who are mainly non-academics, and who bring their own perspectives on the production and validation of knowledge. The book attempts to address some of the tensions between traditional and more participatory approaches to research by exploring three questions: What kinds of oppression can take place when people who experience exclusion work with professional researchers? How can knowledge be truly co-produced in a spirit of mutual learning and respect? What are the most promising approaches to build future alliances for creating a ‘people's knowledge’ that treats equally the professional researcher and those whose expertise comes from their life experience? The book includes some signposts for transforming participatory and action-orientated approaches to research in order to achieve social and environmental justice.