Abstract
Melanie Nind
Inclusive research with people with learning disabilities is distinctive among democratising approaches perhaps in its relationship with theory. Theoretical work does not have to be the domain of the academic researcher but it is often what academics can bring to the dialogic table. Similarly, knowledge of life on the ground living with disability is not the exclusive domain of marginalised groups but it is critical in inclusive research contexts. The Editorial reminds us of the relationship between qualitative research and ways of knowing; that it has always been about valuing unique subjectivities interwoven with contexts.
Inclusive research looks back as it reacts against the people’s treatment by academic research in the past, and forward as it seeks to create new dynamics in research relationships and better outcomes from research. But the editors also flag new futures that are shaped by a different data landscape. The accessibility of ideas and texts is one area in which inclusive researchers have invested huge efforts. Fortunately, Milton’s (2012) double empathy concept highlights reciprocal challenges in interaction and that academic researchers need access help too. Hence the concept of bridges to other worlds is fundamental. Big data and the software to help us to manage and analyse it brings huge new accessibility challenges that inclusive researchers may feel more than most. If this is also integrally tied to accessing research grants, then the accessibility mountain becomes even harder to climb. But inclusive research is as much a dialogue with challenges as it is a dialogue with each other. We have spent the last couple of decades grappling with transforming research so that it can better transform lives and people wanting to do research inclusively will be seeking new ways up - or round - that mountain! Technology is enabling and data is becoming ever more visual; this should help.
Helen Kara
The Editorial talks about democratising research and ethics of care. From my perspective as (among other things) an activist researcher, ethics of justice are every bit as important to democratising research as ethics of care. While the research justice movement is not new, it is gathering pace (Jolivétte, 2015). My Baradian perspective leads me to see ‘ethics of care’ and ‘ethics of justice’ as entangled rather than separate, though I am by no means the first scholar to take that view.
The editorial speaks of ‘principles of democratic dialogue and participatory equality’, yet inequalities are mushrooming all over the globe. My article focuses on how some of these inequalities can play out within and around the research process. More broadly, we are in a time when authoritarian governments are gaining in power, and the right wing of many democratic governments is in the ascendancy. At such times, for many of us, holding fast to our ideals of democracy and participation is essential, difficult, and always political.
The democratic academic world we work within is entangled with capitalism and the market, leading to managerialism and its associated pressures. In that context, I would add a third opportunity-challenge to those of austerity and big data: time. Co-produced research takes time: particularly time to make and nurture the relationships whose quality is essential for good quality research. Time was a huge factor in the phenomenon examined in my article: time for meetings was limited; the timescale for the research was tight; we couldn’t find a time for mediation; and so on. Activist researchers need to resist the erosion of time by forces such as capitalism (‘time is money’) and managerialism (‘time is manageable’). We should advocate for ‘slow research’ (Lindquist, 2012) to ‘resist the neatness and control of the economic markets that seek to erode rigorous qualitative inquiry’ (Mannay, 2016:104).
Umut Erel
Participatory theatre methods relates closely to the endeavours of the Special Issue, namely the emphasis to explore methods which contribute to a democratisation of research and to social transformations. We argue that it is important to include embodied methods in exploring inequalities of participation in citizenship and especially show how embodied methods are important in raising awareness of inequalities of race and migration status. Our project raises methodological questions on how a democratisation of research relations can take place under current restrictions of austerity, where the conditions for equal participation in society and in research are being undermined through growing economic inequalities. This goes hand in hand with the restriction of access to social services and entitlements of citizenship through migration legislation and bordering practices, where those considered potential migrants are being subjected to controls when they access e.g. health, education or other services. Edwards and Brannelly problematise the notion of democratisation, and indeed we agree that normative ideas of democracy and citizenship need to be brought into dialogue with the lived experiences of those who are marginalised and not seen as competent subjects of democratic politics. While such research practice also has its challenges, as inequalities of race, migration, class and education (among others) are also part of the research process, shared political values and a commitment to exploring subjugated knowledge are an important strategy our research project used to dialogically construct new, more inclusive ideas of social participation, including social participation in research. In this sense, the project was an endeavour at prefigurative research. While we did not have the space to explore this further in the article, the project is also an example for a co-production between arts and academic knowledges. To the extent this has been successful, it was also due to a shared commitment and shared values of social transformation.
Helen Moewaka Barnes
In writing this commentary I struggled with the idea of democratising research. Democracy has rarely served indigenous peoples well and may be used to support marginalisation. While democracy can make space for diverse voices, it may also operate as tyranny of the majority, with dominant voices legitimated because they reflect concerns of the greater number of people. In Aotearoa New Zealand, ‘special’ considerations, such as the parliamentary ‘Maori seats’ are frequently questioned as undemocratically providing for the few.
Taking the notion of democracy as providing for participation, in the context of research, democratisation could be seen as building dialogue; rebalancing the notion of what is credible and valid and questioning how our worlds are represented and by whom. If Maori do not participate in research or become disenchanted, research can be shut down; because Aotearoa is a small country and Maori are highly connected researchers can quickly gain reputations, both positive and negative. Rather than being involved solely as conduits for recruitment or facilitators of ‘cultural appropriateness’, we are increasingly leveraging opportunities; for example setting the terms of engagement and developing joint research objectives. These are some of the ways Maori are able to exercise agency and fight marginalisation in the face of austerity, arguing for richly contextualised interpretations and influencing policy.
As an indigenous research group we place considerable emphasis on research processes and relationships. In developing a wairua approach, although the focus is on theory and interpretation, substantial dialogue was required - checking and rechecking with elders and others so that the approach was not ours alone. Placing wairua at the centre requires a shift away from dominant world views in order to reshape how we frame research and to produce knowledge that legitimates Maori epistemologies. We need to remain open to dialogue; it is an approach not an arrival, not just an ‘alternative’ but a challenge to existing approaches.
Bagele Chilisa
Indigenous qualitative methodologies like conventional qualitative methodologies, engage with anti-oppressive research approaches to give voice to the researched. Researchers, for example, employ self-reflexivity to build healthy relationships with the researched, hence both methodologies can be said to be relational, inclusive and democratic. Indigenous research methodologies, however, go further to challenge power imbalance between Western and Non-Western knowledge systems and to claim space for indigenous qualitative research frameworks emanating from indigenous ontological and epistemological standpoints. This trend has been matched with growing interest in indigenous knowledge as a science and body of thought that is an important source for theorising and enacting research. Numerous indigenous qualitative methods are thus becoming visible in the research inquiry literature. In Africa, self-identity narratives derived from a relational ontological standpoint, described in the article, are a necessary decolonising research tool to address ontological insecurity and rebut the negative stereotypes and deficit theorising about Africans.
Another important development in Africa is that Academic researchers are increasingly funded to collaborate with Indigenous knowledge holders and indigenous communities to co-design, co-frame research problems and co-create methodological frameworks that support the integration of knowledge systems. The biggest challenge to these collaborative efforts is the marginalisation and rejection of non-conventional methods and research frameworks by the academy and the research funders. Conventional academic ethics review boards’ policies and protocols are not congruent with indigenous research methodologies. This to us is the biggest challenge to claims of democratisation of qualitative research. These challenges present opportunities for Western and Non-western scholars to challenge the academy to develop and institutionalise ethics protocols that are inclusive of context specific qualitative methods derived from local communities. These protocols should also make provision for the accommodation of Indigenous knowledge holders and other non-academic researchers as authors, to be recognised and cited in the world of academia.
Amohia Boulton
Māori have, since the time of colonisation, experienced research as a process that demeans, lessens, negates, others and excludes. Colonisation completely disrupted our way of life, our traditional knowledges, our customs and our practices. A foreign knowledge system, with foreign traditions, laws, regulations, mores and expectations gained primacy. Our collectively as a people was overturned and a society based on the rights of the individual introduced.
Research for Māori has, therefore, always been political. Efforts to redress power imbalances in research and knowledge production processes led to the emergence throughout the 1980s and 1990s of kaupapa Māori theory and methodology; developments that slightly preceded and then paralleled considerations of more democratic means of knowledge production. Kaupapa Māori theory assumes Māori sovereignty, autonomy, control, self-determination and independence, allowing Māori to control their own culture, aspirations and destiny. In a research context, this means Māori control all aspects of a research endeavour from inception to translation of findings.
In NZ we have a foundation now of almost 40 years of kaupapa Māori approaches to knowledge production upon which to advocate, at the national level, for greater involvement by Māori in determining and driving research that is of use to us. However, despite these advances and ironically given the concomitant rise in the democratisation of research globally (which also calls into question who owns the research issues, for whose interests), the headlong rush on the part of our government into ‘big data’, and its application to ‘solve’ many of our societal ills is alarming. Not least because as a nation, we have yet to have the honest conversation with our own people as to whose interests are being served in using big data, for what purpose, based on what assumptions. Māori are already perceived as a ‘problem’ population within wider NZ society as many of our administrative databases are designed to collect and report deficit-based statistics on our people, e.g.: imprisonment rates; numbers unemployed; school leavers without a qualification. As Edwards and Brannelly note, big data such as these are not contextualised. They do not, and can not, take into consideration for example, the effects colonisation, historical trauma and racism may have had on us individually, as whānau (family) and as a broader collective.
We must remain wary as to the use by government of, and its reliance upon, big data in its efforts to identify and ‘solve’ some of the wicked problems we are grapping with societally. And we must certainly be vigilant of the impact this use will have on efforts to democratise social research and further advance Māori efforts to determine their own research agenda.