Qualitative Research

The concept of inclusive research epitomizes the transformation away from research on people, to research with them. Applied particularly, but not exclusively, in the field of learning disabilities, the concept encapsulates the drive to involve people in the design and conduct of research about them, reach and represent their lived experience, respect them and value different ways of knowing. This article discusses some of the challenges that UK inclusive researchers have shared in focus groups aimed at taking stock of this transformative movement and it shares how a local UK research collaboration between academics and people with learning disabilities has addressed some of these challenges. Inclusive research methods of generating and analysing data are examined within the broader context of how research projects and partnerships are enacted. The article concludes that doing research inclusively is gradually transforming through collective practical wisdom and praxis.

Methodologies such as participatory, feminist, or co-produced research aim to democratise research practice. These kinds of methodologies are devised and embraced by activists as they work to shift the balance of power. Activists and researchers can be uneasy bedfellows, and trying to be both activist and researcher can lead to identity confusion and communication problems. Yet within democratic research practice, researchers and others are often required to enact multiple identities. This article will highlight some of the relationships between activism, research, identity and power. An account of an incident that occurred during a piece of co-produced activist evaluation research, which threatened to undermine that research, illustrates some of the relationships between the enactment of multiple identities and power imbalances in the practice of co-produced activist research. The theoretical work of Karen Barad is used as a lens to help elucidate the complexity of this phenomenon and identify what, and how, we can learn from such incidents.

Reflecting on the transformative potential of participatory theatre methods for social research, the article draws on a project with ethnically diverse migrant mothers in London. The research reframes the experiences and practices of socially and ethnically marginalized migrant mothers as active interventions into citizenship. We also challenge recurring public discourses casting migrant mothers as threats to social and cultural cohesion who do not contribute but instead draw on the resources of the welfare state. We highlight how participatory theatre methods create spaces for the participants to enact social and personal conflicts. It also validates migrant mothers’ subjugated knowledges of caring and culture work creating new forms of citizenship. By enacting different versions of collective stories, the theatre sessions therefore become rehearsals for socio-political transformations.

Wairua, a Maori (indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) concept, somewhat restrictively translated as spirit or spirituality, resonates with many indigenous peoples globally. While spirit is recognised as an important human dimension, the denigration of non-western spiritual understandings means that indigenous peoples often choose to remain silent. Transferring these concerns to research approaches, we edit our voices, with a view to what we think will count as knowledge and what we choose to share with academic audiences. This article discusses the challenges we face when we enter into conversations about wairua and how this might be approached in research. With reference to emerging social science innovations in affect and emotion, the article draws on audio visual recordings of people’s experiences of significant national days in Aotearoa New Zealand. Issues of analysis and representation are explored, along with the potential of these methods to explicate feelings, emotions and spirit.

The article engages with debates on democratizing and decolonizing research to promote multi-epistemological research partnerships that revolutionize the research methods landscape, bringing new paradigms onto the map to advance new research methods that engage and transform communities. The argument in the article is that people of all worlds irrespective of geographic location, colour, race, ability, gender or socio-economic status should have equal rights in the research scholarship and research process to name their world views, apply them to define themselves and be heard. An African-based relational paradigm that informs a postcolonial research methodological framework within which indigenous and non–indigenous researchers can fit their research is presented. The article further illustrates how an African relational ontological assumption can inform a complimentary technique of gathering biographical data on the participants and how African relational epistemologies can inform partnership of knowledge systems. The use of proverbs and songs as indigenous literature and community voices that researchers can use to deconstruct stereotypes and deficit theorizing and community-constructed ideologies of dominance is illustrated.

Democratising methodologies often require research partnerships in practice. Research partnerships between indigenous and non-indigenous partners are commonplace, but there is unsatisfactory guidance available to non-indigene researchers about how to approach the relationship in a way that builds solidarity with the aims of the indigenous community. Worse still, non-indigenous researchers may circumvent indigenous communities to avoid causing offense, in effect silencing those voices. In this article, we argue that the ethics of care provides a framework that can guide ethical research practice, because it attends to the political positioning of the people involved, acknowledges inequalities and aims to address these in solidarity with the community. Drawing on our research partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand, we explain how the ethics of care intertwines with Māori values, creating a synergistic and dialogic approach.