Participatory Research Methods: Doing research inclusively

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Participatory Research Methods Doing research
inclusively

• Quest seminar 9 October 2013

Melanie Nind M.A.Nind_at_soton.ac.uk
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A methodological story

• Beginning
• Complexity/ My position at the start/ Language
• Study aims/ Methodological intentions
• Middle
• Crisis moments/ Epiphanies/ Findings
• End
• My revised position

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Complexity

• Research about participatory methods using a
  participatory approach
• Relationship between the 2
• And the tensions

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Starting position

• I am known as a researcher who has conducted
  research both on and with people with learning
  disabilities, interested in participatory
  research but not exclusively allied to it.
• I find the moral case for inclusive research
  with people with learning disabilities
  compelling. I maintain that while research can be
  valid and emancipatory without always being
  inclusive, more work is needed to find what is
  possible and important for fully exploiting the
  potential of inclusive research.
• (Case for support)

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Language
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Inclusive research a definition

• Walmsley Johnson (2003 16)
• must address issues which really matter and
  which ultimately leads to improved lives
• must access and represent their views and
  experiences
• reflect that people with learning disabilities
  need to be treated with respect by the research
  community

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• Walmsley Johnson (2003 12) reflect, we are
  troubled by a certain stifling of debate about
  the real difficulties of including people with
  learning disabilities in research. We believe it
  is time to challenge certain orthodoxies and
  assumptions in order to clarify what inclusive
  research is and how and where it can be applied
• Study response to the failure to grapple
  honestly (Walmsley Johnson 2003 16) with the
  most sensitive questions, which is needed if the
  investment in inclusive research is to be a wise
  investment

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Research aims

• To build knowledge and capacity in inclusive
  research with people with learning disabilities.
• Take stock of the knowledge base
• Produce guidance on the issues and challenges
• Develop materials and case studies
• Produce criteria for quality in inclusive
  research.

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Research questions

• What does working in partnership really mean?
• What kinds of knowledge are attributable to IR?
• How can outcomes of IR be assessed and
  authenticated?
• What are the benefits problems?
• How might good science and good inclusive
  research practice come together?
• What can be added from sharing interrogating
  practice?

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Methodological intentions

• create vibrant interactive spaces in which best
  use could be made of constructive friction within
  the field - transformative dialogue (Gergen 2009)
  in a stifled arena
• reframe the debate so that the research process
  (rather than who is the expert) is central
• involve participant-researchers not only in the
  task of unveiling that reality of inclusive
  research, and thereby coming to know it
  critically, but in the task of re-creating that
  knowledge (Freire 1970 51).
• co-construct knowledge in a design not
  unsympathetic to the focus on inclusive research

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In practice

• Series of focus groups in dialogic relationship
• People traditionally with and without power
  naming the world (Freire 1970 69) together and
  not on behalf of another (70).

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Focus groups
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Participatory methods

• Talk
• Visual metaphor
• Visual recaps
• I-poems

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Crisis brews

• 1 person asks if people without learning
  disabilities are allowed to speak
• jargon in the ethics form is criticised
• 1 person attacks language of digital story word
  is child-like
• 1 person opts not to complete consent and take
  part
• Daveys answer is corrected
• grenade is thrown!

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The grenade is thrown

• Before we do wrap up, I might discuss a question
  with you Melanie, I just want to know why you
  decided to do an inclusive research project and
  not being inclusive, because I don't get it.
• to me this is again people are subjects

• Fieldnote Helen reminds me this is useful. It is
  a position in the room that I can use to trigger
  responses etc. When I feel less bruised I will
  reflect more on this!!

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Epiphany

• Transition from talking about inclusive
  research to doing research inclusively
• Could emphasising the verb rather than naming the
  approach liberate unshackle us from the dogma?
• Could it give us permission for exploration,
  diversity, development?
• Participatory/inclusive research is not and
  must not be - fixed

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Findings Diverse ways of working
Support Negotiation Interdependency
Formalised
Improvised
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Findings quality participation quality
research happens when

• We answer questions we could not otherwise
  answer, but that are important
• We get access in ways we could not otherwise get
• We make critical use of insider, cultural
  knowledge
• The research is authentic (recognisable)
• We make impact/ a difference to peoples lives

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My position at the end

• Doing research inclusively
• Is hard (emotional labour greater ask too much
  of it)
• Needs to go beyond claims making
• Is not necessarily better
• Retains an allure
• But requires critique and integrity

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Further info

• www.doingresearchinclusively.org
• Nind, M. Vinha, M. Doing research inclusively
  Bridges to multiple possibilities in inclusive
  research, British Journal of Learning
  Disabilities, 2012, i1-8.
• Note This work was funded by the Economic and
  Social Research Council grant RES-000-22-4423. I
  am grateful to the funder and to everyone who was
  involved in the study