I have an exciting new venture to share with you. For the last couple of years I have been working with Policy Press on a new series of short affordable books on creative research methods in practice. And we have just gone public! The first book is on its way: Photovoice, Reimagined by Nicole Brown. And there are several more books in the pipeline. Two are being written right now – one on fiction in research, and one on phenomenography – and four other book proposals are under review.
I wanted to edit this series because there are no such books available to help researchers learn in detail about why, when, and how to use a new research method. There are several books giving an overview of creative research methods, within or across academic disciplines; some sole-authored, some edited collections. These are useful texts but they do not generally offer enough depth of information to enable readers to try out the methods for themselves with confidence. The main rationale for this new series is to do just that.
One of the hardest things to sort out was the design for the covers and webpage. That took months and a lot of emails, discussions, and meetings (most of which I didn’t need to attend, thank goodness). We almost agreed on some covers and then the sales and marketing people at Policy Press said the designs weren’t good enough. They were absolutely right. So we went back to the actual drawing board and started again. I am so pleased with the final result. I think hot air balloons are a delightful combination of science and art, innovation and exploration and adventure – just like creative research methods. (Let’s not focus too closely on the ‘hot air’ part, OK?!) Also Policy Press likes to have a Bristol element to their designs, and Bristol holds an annual International Balloon Fiesta – Europe’s largest event of its kind – so the design works from that viewpoint too.
I am so happy to be able to tell you about this new book series. And if you would like to propose a book for the series, do get in touch!
This blog and the videos on my YouTube channel are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
‘written, graphical or pictorial matter, or a combination of these types of content, in order to transmit or store information or meaning’ (p 11).
So documents have a range of purposes, and can come in a wide variety of forms and formats: digital or hard copy; reports, letters, emails, social media posts, forms, meeting minutes, web pages, leaflets, shopping lists; and so on. Documents are rarely just containers of information, they are also tools for people to use in the world. Documents are used for purposes such as communication (letters, emails etc), or enforcement (legislation and legal judgements), or to make something happen (a child’s birthday present wish-list or an adult’s last will and testament).
Documents can be rich sources of data for research. They may be collected, from libraries, the internet, archives etc, or constructed, such as when a researcher asks participants to keep a diary of relevant events for a specific time period. Collected documents are secondary data, and using secondary data where possible is an ethical approach to research, because it reduces the burden of primary data collection for participants and for researchers.
There are many ways to analyse documentary data: thematic analysis, content analysis, discourse analysis, narrative analysis and metaphor analysis are just a few. And documents are being used as data for research across a wide range of disciplines and fields: psychology, ecology, education, health, technology, linguistics and many others too. Innovative work is being done with documents in research all around the world.
What does not yet exist is an edited collection of chapters to give a sense of the breadth and depth of possibilities offered to research by documents. So I am delighted that Aimee Grant has invited me to co-edit just such a book, which we intend to showcase some of the excellent work being done with documents by researchers worldwide. We formulated our call for proposals last week; the deadline is midday BST on 24 April 2023. Please help us to spread the word!
This blog and the videos on my YouTube channel are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
We all have biases and prejudices that affect our lives in many ways, from the choices we make to our interactions with others. And of course our biases and prejudices can affect our research work too. We can never completely escape from our biases and prejudices, but there are a number of steps we can take to mitigate their impact. Here are ten of the most useful.
1. Get as much good quality information as you can.
The less information you have, the more space there is for biases and prejudices to operate. Ideally, seek information from reputable sources that is backed up by other reputable sources. Of course in some research areas, at the frontiers of knowledge, there is little to be found – but there will be foundational information to build pioneering research on, and again this needs to be demonstrably solid and trustworthy.
2. Use structures to help you think.
Structures, such as checklists, can bring rigour to your thinking. They should be predetermined and tested. One structure I use frequently is the eight criteria identified by Sarah Tracy for assessing the quality of qualitative research. These criteria were themselves developed from a systematic analysis of debates on quality in the qualitative research literature – exactly the kind of demonstrably solid foundational information I referred to in Tip 1 above.
3. Take steps to mitigate the effects of your emotions.
Our emotions are always with us and they inevitably affect our work. We need to be aware of our feelings so we can take the necessary steps to ensure they are not unduly influencing our decisions. Where emotional influence is unavoidable, we should be open about this in our reporting.
4. Seek the opinions of others.
Other people are often better at spotting our biases and prejudices than we are ourselves. It can be useful to talk through your work with someone you trust to give you an honest opinion. Ask for their views about where your biases and prejudices lie, and how they might be affecting your research.
5. Value scepticism.
Remember, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Of course it is possible to overdo scepticism: doubting the accuracy of every single thing is annoying for others and bad for your own mental health. But scepticism in the form of truly critical thinking can be a useful counterbalance to bias and prejudice.
6. Flip the viewpoint.
This involves conducting thought experiments and is particularly useful for debiasing during analytic work. If you think your data is pointing towards a conclusion that group X needs intervention Y, try imagining the opposite. What if group X didn’t need intervention Y? Or what if group X needed intervention M rather than intervention Y? This may sound fanciful, even pointless, yet I recommend that you give it a try. It can be a really useful way to shed light on your findings.
7. Consider accountability.
Who are you accountable to? What would they think of your work? It won’t just be one group of people, so think this through for each group: participants, participants’ families, participants’ community members, colleagues, superiors, maybe funders, your family, your friends… Try to see your work as each group would see it, and consider what that tells you.
8. Use mindfulness.
Bias and prejudice can creep in when you think and work fast. There are incentives in most people’s working lives to think and work fast, but deliberately slowing our thinking can be a very useful guard against bias and prejudice.
9. Practice reflexivity.
Reflexivity involves carefully and critically examining the influences on our work, such as our characters, institutions, identities and experiences. There is no set way to do this, except that it should not become an end in itself; it should serve our research work, or it risks becoming self-indulgent. Working reflexively involves asking ourselves questions such as: Why am I doing this research? What and whose purposes does it serve? Why do some aspects of my research work please or trouble me? And so on.
10. Read work by people who are not like you.
I cannot stress this enough. Learn about others’ views. Read work by people of different genders, ages, ethnicities, cultures, religions/beliefs, political persuasions. Find out how the world looks to them. And this loops us right back to Tip 1 above, because gathering more information about people who are not like us helps to dispel any biases and prejudices we hold about them.
Do you have any other tips for debiasing work? If so, please pop them in the comments.
This blog and the videos on my YouTube channel are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
Trainee qualitative researchers, learning the most popular research method of interviewing, are routinely taught to use their interpersonal skills to create rapport with participants. This has been questioned for the last 20 years by Jean Duncombe and Julie Jessop. They ask, how ethical it is for researchers to fake friendship as a means to the end of gathering data?
On the one hand, it is common for people to use interpersonal skills to help us get what we want from others in our day-to-day lives. This applies whether we want a loan from a credit agency, a prescription from the doctor, a response to a complaint – in a multitude of situations, presenting our most polite and friendly selves can help to get the results we want. So it is arguable that it makes sense also to use these everyday methods in research.
On the other hand, research encounters are rather different from everyday encounters. This applies particularly to qualitative research where a researcher may spend a considerable period of time giving a participant their undivided attention. This is an unusual and often a welcome experience for participants, who often describe it in positive terms such as ‘therapeutic’, ‘cathartic’ or ‘a treat’.
Many of the people we want things from in day-to-day life are either providing us with goods and services, so that a transactional element is built into the encounter, or are already in a personal relationship with us through kinship, friendship or community membership. So the rapport we build in those situations already has a clear basis which is mutually understood. This does not apply within the research encounter, where we are usually asking participants to give us their time and information in exchange for a potential benefit to an imagined future population. (I considered the extent to which this is ethical in my recent post on the LSE Impact Blog.) Also, despite all the efforts to secure informed consent, we know that people generally agree to participate in research for their own reasons rather than ours. And where that reason is to get a little human company and kindness, which is lacking from their own lives, the practice of building rapport begins to appear even more suspect.
Imagine you are, let us say, living on minimal welfare benefits with a chronic condition which makes it difficult for you to leave the house. You have lost touch with the friends you used to have when you could go out to work, and your family live far away. You suffer from anxiety and you are very lonely. The carers who come in three times a day are brisk and professional; they don’t have time to chat, and you don’t want to hold them up because you know they are always under pressure. Then a researcher calls, saying she is doing an evaluation of the care you receive, and asking if she can visit you to ask a few questions. You are delighted because it’s been years since you had a visitor and she sounds so kind and friendly on the phone. When she visits, you tell her all sorts of things about yourself and your life. She seems really interested, and laughs at your jokes, and tells you a few things about her own life in return. You haven’t felt this good in years. When she has asked all her questions, you ask one of your own: please will she visit you again? She looks at the floor and says she would like to, but she can’t promise, because between work and her children she doesn’t have much free time. You would like to suggest she brings her children with her, but you know a ‘no’ when you hear one, so you let her go, wait for the front door to close, and listen to the emptiness of your home and your life.
Duncombe and Jessop point out that these problems are multiplied in longitudinal research, where the boundaries between real and faked friendship can become much more blurred. They share experiences of participants beginning to treat them as friends, and the discomfort that arises when they don’t reciprocate. I have had similar experiences, and I’m sure many other qualitative and mixed-methods researchers have too. It is interesting to consider this Euro-Western approach in the light of the very different Indigenous approach, in which research is deemed to be ethical when it serves to maintain and develop existing relationships. Looked at in this way, our Euro-Western approach of creating and then dropping relationships to further our research purposes seems potentially abusive.
The EU-funded TRUST project developed a Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings. It was based on four values elicited from research they did with a wide variety of people around the world: respect, fairness, honesty and care. The aim was to combat ‘ethics dumping’, where research deemed unethical in a higher-income country is conducted, instead, in a lower-income country where research is not governed by a regulatory system. I would argue that these values should also apply where research is done by a researcher with more social capital than some or all of their participants. In the vignette above, the researcher was not entirely honest and did not show care in response to the participant’s request, e.g. by signposting them to a local befriending service. This could be described as ‘friendship dumping’.
When you think about it, researchers using their interpersonal skills to create rapport with a participant as a means to an end is actually quite manipulative. This might be more defensible when we are ‘studying sideways’ or ‘studying up’, but even then it seems questionable. Showing respect for participants would be a more creditable aim, especially if it was combined with fairness, honesty and care.
The next post on this blog will be in September. You can follow the blog, above, to get my posts in your inbox.
This blog and the videos on my YouTube channel are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
Note: This post was first published on the SRA blog in November 2021 and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author and SRA.
In this blog post, Kimberley Neve, researcher at the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London outlines different methods for capturing ‘lived experience’. Lived experience is the actual, specific ways in which people experience something, in this case food – access to food, food poverty, food quality, food allergies and many others. Kimberley and other researchers at the Centre for Food Policy specialising in qualitative methods have produced a Brief to give an overview of the range of methods you can use when researching people’s lived experience of ‘food environments’. Food environments are the space in which we make all our decisions about food – what to eat, where to buy it, when and with whom to eat it.
Using qualitative methods to influence policy
As researchers we want our work to have impact. We also want to know that it resonates with people and reflects not only the experiences of the research participants, but also of the general population in some way. For our research to have a positive impact, effective communication with policy-makers, both locally and nationally, is vital. Despite the potential of qualitative methods to inform policy that is effective and equitable for the people it is designed to help, the number of qualitative studies used as evidence for policy remains modest compared to quantitative studies.
We wanted to raise the profile of qualitative research methods among both policy-makers and food environment researchers by demonstrating the range of potential methods and their benefits (and drawbacks), with a focus on how using them can help inform policy. These methods can be utilised in a wide range of research areas – for example local transport, access to outdoor space or crime in local areas – providing in-depth insights into people’s lived experiences and practices that can explain how or why people act the way they do.
In our Centre for Food Policy Research Brief (the ‘Brief’) we initially mapped existing studies capturing the lived experience of food environments, categorising methods and relevant case studies. Following this, we consulted with members of our Community of Practice – experts in qualitative research and food environments – for feedback prior to final edits.
What are the qualitative methods you can use?
The Brief is not an exhaustive list of the qualitative methods available; however, we’ve tried to capture the main methods you can use. For the scope of the Brief, we didn’t include quantitative methods but of course recognise their vital role.
Often, combining quantitative and qualitative methods can yield the most valuable insights.
To make the overview as useful as possible, we categorised the methods in the following way:
Group 1 – Exploring experiences, perceptions, beliefs, practices and social networks;
Group 2 – Observing practices in situ;
Group 3 – Designing policy and interventions drawing on the lived experience of participants.
Which method should you use for your research?
Typically, you’ll be likely to benefit from combining methods to suit your research context. For example, visual methods and observation tend to be accompanied by individual or group interviews to provide a more in-depth exploration. In the full Brief you’ll find an overview of qualitative methods with the key benefits and potential limitations of each. Assuming you know all about individual interviews and focus group discussions already, here are a selection of other methods less frequently used in research projects.
Group 1: Visual methods
This includes photo elicitation, creative arts (where participants create artwork such as drawings, videos or theatre), concept mapping (pile sorting, ranking, mental mapping) and timelines. One study in the US used photo elicitation in urban neighbourhoods to identify community-level actions to improve urban environments in relation to health. The study allowed the researchers to identify that not all food outlets affected health in the same way, and that contextual factors such as crime and safety influence how people accessed food, which had implications for community-level policy.
PROS – Group 1 methods work particularly well with young participants or where there are language barriers, as views can be expressed more directly and simply. Participants may also be more willing to share information visually and images can provide insights that may not have been accessible via specific questioning.
CONS – Visual data can be difficult to interpret in a way that fully represents the participant perspective, and there is a potential for photographs to be seen as reflections of reality, rather than subjective perceptions that provide insights into reality. Participants could also misunderstand the objective and take photos that do not help to answer the research question.
Group 1: Geospatial methods
Geospatial methods often combine mapping with photography and/ or GPS to create visual data that can then be discussed in one-to-one interviews or focus group discussions for more insights. Methods include spatial mapping, geonarratives and geotagged photography. These methods are relatively new to the food environment literature; however they have been used very effectively to explore how people engage with their environment in general, for example in their green space encounters.
PROS – Similar to visual methods, geospatial methods can work well to engage participants in a way that is more creative and encourage them to share information more openly. They also allow for participants to share their knowledge as experts of their own food environments. These methods provide insightful data into the connections between space and place, particularly if combined with interviews or focus groups.
CONS – Geotagging requires specific technology that may be expensive and difficult to operate. There are also ethical considerations with mapping someone’s location – when and how this data is collected, stored and used are important factors to specify during the research design.
Group 2: Observation
This involves observing participant behaviour with methods such as go-along tours, transect walks and community group observation. Unlike with non-participant observation (below), the researcher talks to the participants during the activity about what their actions and interactions mean to them. For instance, during a go-along tour in a supermarket (shop-along), the researcher might ask for the thought process behind the decision to purchase a product. Transect walks are go-along tours with the addition of creating a map of the local food environment resources, constraints and opportunities.
In a UK study, go-along interviews were used to explore which changes to supermarket environments would support healthier food practices. A key insight from this research was that varied individual responses to the supermarket environment in low-income neighbourhoods are mediated by differing levels of individual agency. Interventions should include an emphasis on factors that increase agency in order to change how people buy food.
PROS – Insights into the practical aspects of daily life and routines can be captured interactively with the participant and explored in more detail with further questioning. Power imbalances in research are addressed as participants take more control of the research process.
CONS – The researcher’s presence may impact how participants behave or move around spaces, for instance by influencing what they buy in a shop-along tour. It is also quite time-intensive to organise and participate in.
Group 2: Non-participant observation
This is where participants are watched from a distance, for instance by video, with little or no interaction with the researcher. This method was used as part of a focused ethnographic study in Kenya along with interviews and cognitive mapping. The aim of the study was to inform policies for improving infant and young children’s nutrition practices. Among other insights, a key finding for policy was that future interventions must consider various aspects of food insecurity to improve conditions in practice.
PROS – You can get insights into ‘real’ individual actions, such as shopping or eating practices, without the researcher’s presence influencing the actions. Features of everyday life that may otherwise not be mentioned can be recorded and explored with further questioning. The researcher can also complete a log to provide contextual insights that can explain practices from a more objective viewpoint.
CONS – Observation alone, without a follow-up interview or discussion, means the researcher is unable to dig into the reasons underpinning the actions, so the interpretation of the situation can be subjective.
Group 3: Photovoice, co-design, co-creation, systems mapping, group model building
The third group of methods were particularly difficult to classify, as terminology and meanings often overlapped (for instance with co-creation and co-design). These methods place the participant at the centre of the research process and actively engage communities affected by policy decisions (at a neighbourhood, city, county, country level) in the research process. Participants are encouraged to draw on their own experiences, expertise and knowledge of their food environments to think about and propose change, so that policies resulting from the research are relevant and context-specific, and as a result have the potential to be more sustainable.
An example of effective group model building can be seen in a study in the US, where community-based workshops took place with a diverse group of chain and local food outlet owners, residents, neighbourhood organisations, and city agencies.Action ideas were discussed for interventions to promote healthy food access, including funding new stores that stock healthy food options and building the capacity for sourcing local produce in stores.
PROS – For all of the methods in Group 3, the ‘hands-on’ nature of research enables participants to generate information and share knowledge on their own terms. Outputs, such as policy recommendations, are created together with the participants to be effective in their local context following an in-depth research process.
CONS – These methods all run the risk of being perceived as tokenistic by participants if engagement is not meaningful and genuine.
In brief
Decisions about which methods to select to study live experience depend on the purpose of the study (i.e. guided by a specific research question), the local context, time and resources available, and the benefits and limitations of each method.Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the possibilities of using digital tools and technology as key facilitators for remote research.
As researchers, we not only need to engage participants and design research projects that will yield useful insights; we also have to translate our findings so that these insights can inform the design of effective and equitable policy. By using a range of methods, a more comprehensive and detailed overview can be communicated. Visual materials and stories are particularly effective ways for qualitative researchers to communicate their findings to policy-makers and make a refreshing addition to the more common interviews and focus groups.
Kimberley Neve is a Researcher at the Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London. She works as part of the Obesity Policy Research Unit, investigating people’s lived experiences of food environments to inform policy in areas such as infant feeding and weight management. Kimberley is a Registered Associate Nutritionist with a Masters in Global Public Health Nutrition.
Research ethics committees are very concerned with the potential vulnerability and sensitivity of research participants. So far, so laudable – but I don’t think they show their concern in particularly useful ways. Gaining formal approval from a research ethics committee is a hoop many researchers have to jump through, but then the real work of ethics begins.
For most research ethics committees, vulnerability is an attribute of some groups and not others. Groups who may be deemed to be vulnerable include children, older people, or adults with learning disabilities. These categories are specified by UKRI who oversee government-funded research in the UK. But if you look at this in more detail, it doesn’t stand up. Take children. Say a competent 14-year-old is a young carer for their single parent who lives with severe and enduring mental health problems and drinks alcohol all day. Which of those two people might be better able to give informed consent to the child taking part in research? Conversely, people are not necessarily vulnerable because they are older. President Biden is 79 and I can’t imagine him being seen as vulnerable. Learning disabilities don’t necessarily make people vulnerable either, as some of my dyslexic friends would no doubt agree.
Vulnerability is not an attribute, it is a state we all move into and out of in different ways. The start of the Covid-19 pandemic made this abundantly clear. Quite suddenly we were all vulnerable to illness, perhaps death; to increased anxiety; to fear for loved ones who fell sick; to bereavement. Heads of state were no safer than ordinary people living in apartments or suburbs, and researchers were every bit as vulnerable as their participants. Perhaps one small positive side-effect of the pandemic is this: we can see more clearly that we are all vulnerable to changing circumstances resulting in trouble or trauma. Which does not mean we are all vulnerable all the time – but that any of us may be, or may become, vulnerable at any time. As researchers, I think it is essential for us to be aware of this, and ready to face and manage it when it occurs.
Vulnerability and sensitivity have something in common. Just as it is not possible to predict from group membership who is and is not vulnerable, so it is not possible to predict who will and will not be upset by a topic. Of course some topics are likely to be upsetting: female genital mutilation, suicide, sex work, and so on. And we need to put whatever precautions we can in place if we are investigating topics like these, that are evidently sensitive: to make the experience as safe as possible for our participants, and for ourselves. But we cannot be sure that everyone will find these topics equally sensitive; there are people who can take such topics in their stride.
Conversely, some people may be upset by apparently innocuous topics. Suppose a market researcher is investigating people’s perceptions of homewares. In one interview, the researcher asks their question about teapots, and realises their participant is struggling to hold back tears. The participant explains that the last gift ever given to them by their beloved mother, who died exactly one year ago, was a teapot. Perfectly plausible; impossible to foresee.
So, we can’t always predict everything everyone will be sensitive about, and we shouldn’t pretend we can. But, again, we need to equip ourselves with the mental and emotional intelligence and dexterity to be able to deal with the unexpected. Because if there is one thing we can predict, it is that at times we will face the unpredictable.
This blog, the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, and the videos on my YouTube channel, are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
I thought it was time to share more of the books from my shelves. As with my previous post on this topic, this post is a reflection of my personal collection, built from the recommendations of students, colleagues and people on social media, as well as my own explorations. The more I have read and worked with Indigenous scholarship, the more convinced I have become of the importance of including these perspectives in my own work wherever they are relevant. I am glad to be able to use my own power, such as it is, to amplify the voices of scholars who are much more marginalised than me.
Books on Indigenous research methods are very different from books on Euro-Western research methods. Books on Euro-Western research methods are akin to recipe books: combine these things, like this, and you will probably get that result, unless some contextual factor gets in the way. Books on Indigenous research methods don’t start with what to do and how to do it, they start with stories, and thinking, and sharing, and knowing, and learning. One key difference is that Indigenous research is designed to serve existing relationships, and if it is not likely to at least maintain and ideally strengthen those relationships, it is not deemed to be worth conducting. In the Euro-Western paradigm, we teach novice qualitative researchers to ‘create rapport’ with participants, to put them at ease – in effect, to make instrumental use of our friendship skills to obtain information from people we may not ever see again. Euro-Western researchers have begun to question how ethical this is. Indigenous researchers offer us some unmissable clues to the answer.
I am not, and I will never be, an expert on Indigenous research. Since my book on research ethics came out – with its subtitle of ‘Euro-Western and Indigenous Perspectives’ – I have received several invitations to speak about Indigenous research and to peer-review journal articles written by Indigenous scholars. I always refuse the first, and I only accept the second if the journal editor can assure me that the other reviewers will be Indigenous scholars (which, to date, no journal editor has been able to do). As a white English person I already have too much power in this post-colonial arena. I do not plan ever to use any of it to set myself above or take advantage of the Indigenous scholars who have taught me, and are teaching me, so much through their writings.
These books could be described as more theoretical than practical but, in the words of Kurt Lewin, the inventor of action research, ‘There is nothing as practical as a good theory.’ Lewin was a Jewish German psychologist who immigrated to the US as an adult in 1933, so he had experienced and understood oppression. He was also, perhaps as a result, much more interested in applied research which could make a positive difference to social problems than to research that might generate knowledge for its own sake. In the Indigenous research literature this distinction is not relevant, made or discussed, because knowledge is conceptualised as collectively owned, in contrast to the Euro-Western paradigm where knowledge is conceptualised as a form of individual property.
I could say a lot more about the similarities and differences I perceive, but I need to get to the books! The first is Talkin’ Up To The White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism by Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Professor of Indigenous Research at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia. This was recommended by various people on social media, and I didn’t get around to buying a copy until last year, but I’m not sorry because I got the 20th anniversary edition with a new preface. It is a book of relevance to every white woman and anyone who uses feminist theory. Although it was written over 20 years ago, it is still highly, urgently topical. The author explains how white women dominate the feminist agenda; invites us to notice and interrogate our white privilege; and suggests we need to figure out how to give up some of that privilege in the interests of greater equality – which, after all, is where feminism came in.
Syed Farid Alatas is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. His book Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Science: Responses to Eurocentrism points out how and why Euro-Western social science doesn’t fit with Asian realities. The book covers the whole of Asia and all of the social sciences, and – despite its title – argues that alternative discourses alone are not enough, particularly if they are created in the same mould as the Euro-Western social science discourses so prevalent in Asian universities. Alatas explains in forensic detail how Asian academies are still colonised by Western approaches and curricula. He calls for a ‘liberating discourse’ which will help to popularise Asian ideas and perspectives.
Antonia Darder is a Puerto Rican and American scholar, artist, poet and activist. She has edited a collection called Decolonizing Interpretive Research: A Subaltern Methodology for Social Change. The foreword, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, notes that ‘dominant theories … have spectacularly failed to transform the lives of subaltern communities and have instead reinforced privilege and inequalities across all developed and developing countries’ (p xii). In her introduction, Darder points out that an insistence on empirical evidence is a colonialist approach and, in close alignment with Alatas, calls for a reversal of privilege to foreground Indigenous philosophies and approaches.
Applying Indigenous Research Methods: Storying with Peoples and Communities is edited by Indigenous American scholars Sweeney Windchief and Timothy San Pedro. The editors begin by acknowledging that there is more in the literature about what Indigenous research methods are, and why, than about how they can be applied. This book sets out to correct that imbalance – and says quite clearly on the back cover that it is designed for use and teaching across Indigenous studies and education. Any Euro-Western researcher who is looking for methodological novelty they can use in their own work will not find that here. What they will find instead are inspiring stories of how research can be when it is understood and conducted holistically in and for communities of people who share a system of values which have been developed and tested over millennia.
Shawn Wilson, Andrea Breen and Lindsay DuPré have edited Research and Reconciliation: Unsettling Ways of Knowing through Indigenous Relationships. The editors are two Indigenous researchers and one white settler. They explain the troubled complexity of the concept of reconciliation, which means different things to different people and can be co-opted for colonialist purposes. The editors are overtly working towards twin purposes of creating intellectual discomfort in some arenas and, in others, creating and protecting spaces for researchers to work as authentically as possible. And, again, the contributions are inspiring stories – though sadly, unlike all the others, this book doesn’t have an index.
There are more links between the last three books than their presentation of stories. These books seem to speak to each other, the stories intertwining and sometimes disagreeing, going back and forth and around again but always making progress. Like a conversation. And they are all very readable, written with dialogue and storytelling, poetry and images.
Lastly I am going to mention again a book I covered in my previous post: Indigenous Research Methodologies by Professor Bagele Chilisa from the University of Botswana. I am mentioning this book again because the second edition is now out and well worth buying and reading, even if you already have the first edition.
This blog, the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, and the videos on my YouTube channel, are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
Last week, in the context of some work I’m doing for a client, I was trying to find something someone had written in answer to the question: what is data? I looked around online, and in my library of methods books, and I couldn’t find anything except some definitions.
The definitions included:
Factual information used as a basis for reasoning or calculation (Merriam-Webster)
Information, especially facts or numbers, collected to be used to help with making decisions (Cambridge English Dictionary)
Individual facts, statistics, or items of information, often numeric (Wikipedia)
Data is also, demonstrably, a word, and a character in Star Trek. So far, so inconclusive. Yet people talk and write about data all the time: in the media, in books and journals, in conversations and meetings. And they use it to refer to many other things than facts or numbers. Data may be anything from a piece of human tissue to the movement of the stars.
Euro-Western researchers conventionally speak and write of ‘collecting’ data. And indeed some data can be collected. If you want to research beach littering, you can go and collect all the litter from one or more beaches, and then use that litter as data for analysis. If you want to know what differences there may be in how print media describes people of different genders, you can collect relevant extracts from a bunch of articles and then use those extracts as data for analysis. So this is valid in some cases. However, if you plan to research lived experience by collecting data, you are effectively viewing people as repositories of data which can be transferred to researchers on request, and viewing researchers as people who possess no data themselves so need to take it from others. Clearly neither of these positions are accurate.
Some Euro-Western researchers speak and write of ‘constructing’ data. This refers to the generation of data as a creative act, such as through keeping a diary for a specified length of time, taking photographs during a walking interview, or making a collective collage in a focus group. Even conventional interview or focus group data can be viewed as being constructed by researcher and participant(s) together.
Autoethnographers and embodiment researchers privilege data from their own lived experience, though often they also use data collected from, or constructed with, others. But for these researchers, their own sensory experiences, thoughts, emotions, memories and desires are all potential data.
For Indigenous researchers, all of these and more can be used as data, which is often co-constructed with the researcher and all participants working together in a group. This is done in whatever way is appropriate for the researcher’s and participants’ culture. Māori research data is co-constructed through reflective self-aware seminars. In the Mmogo method from southern Africa, objects with symbolic and socially constructed meanings are co-constructed from familiar cultural items such as clay, grass stalks, cloth and colourful buttons, during the research process, to serve as data (Chilisa 2020: 223-4,243). Indigenous researchers in America, Canada and Australia use oral history, stories and artworks as data (Lambert 2014:29-35).
All of this tells us that data is not purely facts and numbers, as the definitions would have us believe. Conversely, we could conclude from the examples above that pretty much anything can be data. This does not mean anything can be data for any research project. You’re not likely to find a cure for disease by collecting bus timetables, or identify the best way to plan a new town by making inukshuk. But bus timetables could be very useful for research into public transport systems, and making inukshuk could be integral to Indigenous research into the knowledge and belief systems of Arctic peoples.
Data can be documents or tattoos, poems or maps, artefacts or photographs – the list is very, very long. And of course a research project may use different kinds of data, which could be collected, or constructed, or some of each. The question we need to ask ourselves, at the start of any research project, is: what kind(s) of data are most likely to help us answer our research question, within its unique context including any constraints of budget and/or timescale? In the end, for some projects, the answer will be facts, or numbers, or both. But if we assume this from the start, we close off all sorts of potentially interesting and useful options.
This blog, the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, and the videos on my YouTube channel, are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
Last month I was involved in the final review meeting for the PRO-RES project. This is a project funded by the European Commission to create an ethics framework for all non-medical researchers. I worked on this project from 2018–2021: I have written about the experience here, and about some of the resources we created and curated here.
One key resource is a collection of research ethics codes and guidelines. We also conducted five case studies of very different approaches to developing and implementing codes and guidelines. These were from:
The Estonian Code of Conduct for Research Integrity
The Croatian Agency for Personal Data Protection
INGSA has around 6000 members from more than 100 countries, and they are not just government science advisors (as the name suggests) but a much wider group. INGSA acts as an informal network of key actors who help to build evidence and provide advice for policy-makers. It works to ensure that the evidence used by its members is scientifically robust and ethically sound. Its global and transdisciplinary work is too complex and multi-faceted to be managed through a written ethics code or guideline. Instead, it focuses on training advisors to identify robust and ethical evidence.
UKRIO and ARMA worked together to create a common framework for ethics support and review for UK universities and other research organisations. The aim was to support best practice and common standards, and the framework was co-produced by ethicists, research ethics committee chairs, and representatives of universities, research funders and learned societies. The framework was published in 2020, is explicit and detailed, and is freely available online. It is now being used by many universities and research organisations.
The SRA has recently updated its ethical guidelines, which are widely used by researchers from a range of sectors. The SRA is a small charity run by volunteers, and the update was also done by volunteers, which meant it took quite a long time. The pandemic slowed the process even more. In retrospect, they would have benefited from paying someone to do the initial drafting with input from a group of volunteers. They considered looking for another organisation’s guidelines to adopt, but decided that could be just as difficult and might prove impossible. So they pressed on and finished the job. The guidelines were published in early 2021 and are freely available online.
The Estonian case study researched the process leading to, and following, the signing of the national Estonian Code of Conduct for Research Integrity in 2017. The process of developing and signing the code took 18 months and involved universities and research organisations, plus consultations with partners from research and development institutions and with the wider public. After the code was signed, the process of implementation began, with debates around committees for research integrity and different universities applying the code in different ways. The Estonian Research Council and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science are reorganising relevant legislation to align with the code, and monitoring its implementation.
These case studies may seem quite disparate but, collectively, they offer some useful lessons. First, when creating frameworks for ethics and integrity in research, there is a clear need to balance ethical ideals with what is possible in practice. Second, being prescriptive is not possible because of the constant changes to research contexts and wider society. Third, delegating responsibility for ethics to a specialised team such as a research ethics committee leads to compliance, not engagement. (I have written more about this elsewhere.) Fourth, sanctions and incentives can help to deepen commitment, but are only appropriate for some discrete elements of research ethics such as GDPR.
I also found it interesting to observe the discussions during the PRO-RES project. I learned that a number of ethicists yearn for a common ethics guide or code: ‘one code to rule them all, one code to bind them,’ as I sometimes enjoyed misquoting. I also learned that institutions, organisations, nations and other groups feel a strong need to develop their own code, with nuances and emphases that reflect their own ethos and vision. The PRO-RES project initially aimed to create a common framework for all non-medical researchers. And indeed it has done so, though how widely the framework will be taken up and used remains to be seen.
A central part of the framework is the PRO-RES Accord, a concise statement of ethical principles which was widely consulted on during the PRO-RES project. Over 1000 people, across Europe and beyond, gave feedback on draft versions before the accord was finalised. Signing the accord means you agree to abide by its principles; endorsing the accord means you commend its principles and will strive to promote them. Anyone can download, sign, and/or endorse the accord, either as an individual or on behalf of an organisation. Perhaps you would like to do so yourself.
This blog, the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, and the videos on my YouTube channel, are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
For me, one of the greatest developments in research methods so far this century is the genesis and expansion of asset-based research.
Up to the end of the last century, research was almost entirely based on deficits. What we studied were problems, lacks, difficulties, deficiencies, gaps. This is understandable: people generally do research to try to improve matters, so starting with something that needs improvement makes sense. However, we were missing a big trick.
Around the turn of the century, psychologists Martin Seligman and Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi founded the positive psychology movement. Before then psychologists had exclusively studied topics such as memory loss, criminal and deviant behaviour, attachment disorders, psychopathology and the like. The positive psychology movement chose to study topics such as happiness, resilience, well-being and so on, to find out what we can learn from people who are flourishing and how we might be able to extend some of that to others.
Organisational researchers David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva were taking a similar approach. They developed the method of Appreciative Inquiry which begins by looking at what an organisation does well and is proud of, and then considers how it can improve in the light of its successes. And researchers from various disciplines around the world have been drawing on Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach to consider what Indigenous and other marginalised people can and do contribute to their communities.
Asset-based research is also beginning to be used in other fields, including Autism research. I am proud to have made a small contribution to this process myself, through a journal article Aimee Grant and I wrote which was published in Contemporary Social Science last month. The article is called Considering the Autistic advantage in qualitative research: the strengths of Autistic researchers. Much Autism-related research has been conducted by neurotypical people based on a view of Autistic people as deficient. By contrast, in our article, Aimee and I demonstrate that Autistic people like us have a lot to offer to qualitative research teams. We have also formulated some guidance, for teams with a mix of neurotypical and neurodiverse people, to facilitate effective inclusive working.
I am delighted to say the article is open access so you can all read it! I am also delighted that it has generated a lot of interest, with over 2,500 views in its first three weeks. And I feel proud to have been able to make this contribution within nine months of my own Autism diagnosis. Though I should acknowledge that I couldn’t have done it without Aimee, who was an excellent collaborator. Also, we had fantastic support from the journal editors and the anonymous reviewers. If you are looking for a home for an article on researcher experiences and research methods, or would like to propose a special issue, I would encourage you to consider Contemporary Social Science. It is the journal of the Academy of Social Sciences, of which I am a Fellow, but you don’t need any links to the Academy to submit work to the journal. They publish four issues a year, of which only one is open access at present, but that may change in time.
Anyway, if you find our article helpful or interesting – or disagree with the points we make, because all reasoned debate is useful – then please let us know, either here in the comments or over on Twitter.
This blog, the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, and the videos on my YouTube channel, are funded by my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only blog posts, bi-monthly Q&A sessions on Zoom, free e-book downloads and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my blogs and videos. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through the PayPal button on this blog, if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
Helen Kara 