March 2004 - Ref 334
Participatory approaches to research on poverty
What real voice do people with direct experience of poverty have in
research and inquiry into poverty? This study, by Fran Bennett with
Moraene Roberts, gives an overview of 'participatory' approaches to
research and inquiry into poverty in the UK. 'Participatory'
approaches respect the expertise of people with direct experience of
poverty and give them more control over the research process and more
influence over how findings are used. The researchers examine the
issues involved when principle turns into practice. They find that:
- Reasons for using participatory approaches range from recognising the
particular expertise of people with experience of poverty in putting
forward their own realities - and their right to do so - to increasing
the effectiveness of research and deepening understanding of poverty
and policy impact.
- Influences on participatory research in the UK include 'user
involvement' and 'user control' in health and social care, and the
'emancipatory research' of the disabled people's movement. But
probably most significant are the participatory approaches widely used
in international development work; these are becoming better known
here.
- Participatory approaches to poverty research in the UK are gaining
ground. But if they are to become mainstream practice, they will need
to feed into national level processes and be linked to wider policy
change.
- Basic building blocks to make participatory approaches work include:
time to allow people to go at their own pace; adequate financial and
other support; and opportunities for personal exchange.
- Key factors in getting the most from participation are: clarity about
aims, rather than allowing limits of resources to dictate the extent
and quality of participation; and involving people in poverty in
making sense of the information produced, by using their 'insider
expertise'.
- The researchers conclude that social research funders should allow for
the realistic resource requirements of participatory approaches.
Organisations working to strengthen the 'voice' of people living in
poverty also need adequate long-term support.
Background
This study focuses on the participation of people with direct
experience of poverty in research and inquiry into poverty, especially
at national level. Research is important because it shapes what kinds
of knowledge and experience 'count', and helps frame images of poverty
and people in poverty.
This study examined the 'added value' of participatory approaches to
research and inquiry into poverty, and explored some of the debates
involved. It gives an overview of participatory practice in research
and inquiry into poverty in the UK and makes proposals about how to
take these approaches forward.
Participatory approaches: what they are and how they can work
Participatory approaches to research are not about just including
personal quotes in an otherwise unchanged research report, or adding
'subjective' feelings to the 'objective' findings of the researcher.
They are about people with direct experience of poverty having more
voice in the research process - from defining the issues to working
out solutions. Participatory research also attempts to be an
interactive process, rather than a one-off exercise extracting
information from people.
But there can be different levels of involvement, and different
numbers of people involved. In fact, participatory research can be
seen more as an approach than consisting of specific techniques.
Sometimes it is a form of joint inquiry by people with experience of
poverty and others working together to investigate an issue. Basic
building blocks to make participatory approaches work include time to
allow people to go at their own pace; adequate financial and other
support; and opportunities for personal exchange.
Reasons for using participatory approaches
Participatory approaches can 'add value':
- by improving research: enriching understanding of the lived
realities of poverty, and arriving at policies which make sense to
those affected;
- by bringing gains for participants: increasing the confidence and
'voice' of people in poverty - but also acting as a learning process
for those not in poverty who are involved, and often resulting in the
creation of new networks;
- by embodying the principle of the right of people in poverty to
influence images of poverty and public debate; and by strengthening
their claims to other rights and to full citizenship.
Participatory approaches to monitoring and evaluation can also
identify what outcomes are important to those affected by policy
interventions themselves. And they can help untangle complex processes
of individual and community change.
Connections with other research approaches
Various other trends and approaches in research have connections with
participatory research on poverty. In particular:
- 'emancipatory research', as developed by the disabled people's
movement, takes on the power relations involved in research and aims
to change the social relations of research production, with disabled
people in control;
- 'user involvement', best-known in health and social care, is about
users of services having more say in their design and delivery; 'user
led/controlled' research involves a greater degree of control by users
themselves.
In relation to research on poverty:
- debate about the ethics of researching poverty has focused on
acknowledging the power relations involved, and the real costs to
participants, not only in terms of the time commitment needed but
also, more importantly, in terms of how much has to be disclosed about
personal experiences;
- there has been a growing recognition of the
'agency' of people in
poverty, and their strengths, rather than just treating them as
passive victims;
- in international development,
the principle that anti-poverty policies only work if they are based
on the knowledge of people living in poverty is now widely accepted.
Examples of participatory practice in research and inquiry into
poverty
The study looked at four examples of participatory practice (see boxed
text). These ranged from two more traditional research exercises, one
in the UK and one international, to two joint inquiries, one of which
took place in the UK and one abroad. Each shows how those involved
strove to be participatory in their approach despite constraints of
time, funding and human relations. These case-studies tell the stories
and draw out practical lessons.
Participatory practice in research and inquiry into poverty in the UK
Participatory practice is not yet seen as a central element of
mainstream social research in the UK; but it is expanding, especially
at local level. Recent developments in research on poverty provide a
bridge linking traditional approaches with more participatory methods.
Development organisations and others using participatory approaches
from the 'south' of the globe are also starting to influence practice
in the UK. The Cabinet Office recently produced guidelines for
government departments on public involvement. The Scottish Executive
is promoting experiments in local level participatory research.
Several academic departments and national non-governmental
organisations also use participatory principles in their research. But
major challenges now include finding ways of feeding into national
level processes and of engaging with topical policy debates.
‘Poverty
First Hand’
This research in the UK involved 20 group discussions with
people with past or present experience of poverty, based on
issues identified in an earlier participatory meeting.
Although they could not achieve their aims in full due to
funding shortfalls, the researchers based their work on
participatory principles and tried in a variety of ways to
give participants greater control over the research process
and the messages to be conveyed. They call for other similar
projects to be undertaken.
(See: Beresford, P., Green, D.,
Lister, R. and Woodard, K., Poverty First Hand: Poor
people speak for themselves, Child Poverty Action Group,
1999) |
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World Bank:
‘Voices of the Poor’
Substantial participatory and
qualitative research fed into the World Development Report
2000. Messages were conveyed from existing research; and new
participatory research was also carried out, across many
countries. This example showed that ‘participatory’ methods
used in the ‘south’ often have useful lessons for the UK
although they are not a blueprint to be copied. The people
in poverty involved at the first stage did not influence the
subsequent analysis - though the exercise probably succeeded
in convincing the World Bank about the value of
participatory approaches to poverty research.
(See: Narayan, D., Patel, R.,
Rademacher, A., Schafft, T. and Koch-Schulte, S., Voices
of the Poor: Can anyone hear us?, Oxford University
Press, 2000/2001) |
|
Commission on
Poverty, Participation and Power
The Commission was set up by the
UK Coalition against Poverty, and supported by the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation, to investigate barriers to
participation in decision-making faced by people in poverty.
It followed a UK-wide consultation exercise with people
living in poverty which used participatory methods from the
‘south’. The Commission was made up of half ‘grassroots’
members with direct experience of poverty and half ‘public
life’ members - with a shared commitment, but different
kinds of expertise. So it was a form of joint inquiry. Its
report reflected the often challenging exchanges between
Commissioners in its vivid language and grounding in real
life experience. Its recommendations about how to involve
people in poverty in policy debates and decision-making have
been promoted with government.
(See: Commission on Poverty,
Participation and Power, Listen Hear: The right to be
heard, The Policy Press (in association with UKCAP and
JRF), 2000; ’The Commission on Poverty, Participation and
Power: an evaluation’, JRF Findings 7102, 2002/2001) |
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Pooling Knowledge
on Poverty
ATD Fourth World, an
international human rights organisation working with people
living in long-term poverty, set up this joint inquiry to
‘produce new knowledge and understanding out of the fight
against persistent poverty’, based on pooling academic
knowledge, knowledge gained through action and knowledge
from experience. The participants from France and Belgium
who worked together over two years included academics,
full-time volunteers from ATD Fourth World and people
experiencing poverty who were ATD activists. They explored
five themes: history, the family, knowledge and learning,
work and citizenship. They found common ground in shared
human experiences, and discovered that knowledge of
different kinds could be of equivalent and equal value.
(See: ATD Fourth World,
‘Introducing the knowledge of people living in poverty into
an academic environment’, Fourth World Journal,
summer 1999) |
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Promise and possibilities, problems and pitfalls
'Participation' can be used to evoke almost anything involving people.
So its meanings need to be unpacked, to make sense of claims that
research is 'participatory' - going beyond the principle, to explore
what it means in practice.
- Issues about the 'who' include the problem of the label 'poverty'
itself, and the differences of power even within groups of people
living in poverty or in poor communities - cosy consensus cannot be
assumed. People may want a more or less active role, and their
participation should not be seen as cost-free or compulsory. Instead
of 'full' participation, what may make more sense is 'optimum'
participation; the key is clarity about aims, rather than allowing
limits of time and money to dictate the extent and quality of
participation. People living in poverty may have high expectations of
the researcher's power, or low expectations of change. Participants
need information, and often different kinds of support, to make the
most of their involvement. But participatory approaches do not have to
rule out other people being involved as well.
- Issues about the 'how' include whether research involves people in
poverty only as suppliers of information, or whether they have greater
control - the core of participatory approaches. Involving people in
poverty in making sense of the information produced, by using their
'insider expertise', may be more important than employing them as
interviewers. Participatory research can produce numbers ('pooled
people's knowledge'), as well as qualitative information. Findings
should be 'triangulated' with data obtained by other methods; and
methods can often be combined, using each in turn to inform the other.
- Issues about the 'what' include whether participatory research is
just about allowing the voice of people in poverty to be heard in an
unfiltered way - or a more complicated process, in which everyone
involved has a stake. Whatever the ideal, participatory research may
often in practice be an attempt to combine different forms of
knowledge in a way which tries to create a more equal and two-way
dynamic between the 'researcher' and the 'researched'. Some
experiments are also now being carried out using more deliberative
methods of inquiry, which move away from just listening and
transmitting 'voices' towards more sustained dialogue and debate,
therefore also opening up opportunities for policy influencing.
Conclusions and recommendations
The researchers conclude that the case for participatory approaches to
research and inquiry into poverty rests on the right of people in
poverty to put forward their own realities; the particular expertise
they have in doing so, which gives 'added value'; and the
opportunities it can give them to influence policy and practice.
Participatory forms of research and inquiry are unlikely in themselves
to achieve social change. But they can be used by existing
organisations to strengthen their own voice; and they can help create
new relationships for bringing about change in the longer term.
To promote participatory approaches to research and inquiry into
poverty, the researchers recommend that:
- social research funders could take more account of the realistic
requirements of more participatory forms of research and inquiry,
especially in terms of resources and time, and undertake to cover such
additional support needs; and those funders already committed to
exploring the potential of participatory approaches could promote
these in exchanges with others.
- social researchers could be given more opportunities to experiment
with using participatory methods; and practitioners could work more
with key institutions to embed participatory processes more firmly.
- a UK-wide network of social researchers could be set up to stimulate
discussion between people working in participatory ways on poverty
research.
- government could try to be more flexible and open-ended about
monitoring and evaluation. Policy-makers need to be introduced to
participatory approaches, and engage with people in poverty - but
practitioners must also be aware of policy-makers' needs. Spaces for
sustained debates between policy-makers and people with experience of
poverty need to be increased. And adequate funding should be provided
to organisations working with people living in poverty.
'For once, they have not written about us without us.'
(Participant at launch of Pooling Knowledge on Poverty study, 1999)
About this project
The report was written by Fran Bennett, social policy
analyst/academic, in co-operation with Moraene Roberts, an
anti-poverty activist with ATD Fourth World who has direct experience
of poverty. Both have experience of trying to put participatory
approaches into practice, and had close connections with some of the
experiments described in the report. The process of producing the
report was not planned as a participatory exercise in itself; but it
did involve input from people with direct experience of poverty and
others involved in participatory ways of working. The report therefore
drew on the knowledge and experience of many different individuals and
organisations and the authors would like to thank them all.
How to get further
information
The full report, From input to
influence: Participatory approaches to research and inquiry into
poverty by Fran Bennett with Moraene Roberts, is published by the
Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (ISBN 1 85935 177 8, price £15.95)
Click on the 'order report' icon in
the left margin to order online.
Click on the 'report .pdf' icon in the
left margin to download a pdf of the full report free of charge. (File
size is 0.29MB). |
