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Part One
Theoretical and methodological issues
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One
Community research: opportunities and challenges
Lisa Goodson and Jenny Phillimore
Introduction
The contributions in this book, and the level of international interest sparked by our original call for chapters, are testimony to a growing research movement interested in community research. In recent years, academics as well as practitioners, research funders and evaluation commissioners have realised that those traditionally viewed as research objects possess skills, knowledge and expertise that can enable them to make a wide range of valuable contributions to research projects. Engaging members of different communities to research social life, problems or processes within their own communities can bring new dimensions and perspectives to research questions and can bring insider knowledge about social life within communities rarely reached by âoutsideâ researchers (see Goodson and Phillimore, 2010). In this book we use the term âcommunity researchâ to distinguish the approach from other more familiar and more widely documented practices such as community-based participatory research (CBPR) or community-based research (CBR): whereby research is conducted as an equal partnership and community members are involved in all aspects of the research process (see Minkler and Wallerstain, 2003, 2008; Strand et al, 2003; Israel et al, 2005), participatory action research (PAR) or simply action research (AR): where through the participation of community members, projects are concerned with collectively improving the quality of their community or the area concerned and may be ideologically or politically motivated (see Reason and Bradbury, 2001; Stringer, 2007). Each of these approaches aims to empower community members. This book is not about empowering communities per se, although empowerment may be implicit or even explicit in some community research projects. This book is about how to involve communities in the production of knowledge.
While community research has been employed by both academics and practitioners in a number of fields, such as education, health and social care, housing, psychology and community development, there is a dearth of systematically collected knowledge and reflective accounts about the approach, including its implementation and impact. This book helps to bridge a gap in knowledge by considering both theoretical and practical issues, from a range of different perspectives and disciplines, with a view to stimulating thinking about how methodological advancements can be made in the field of community research. As well as being of practical help to those wishing to adopt a community research approach, we hope that this book will encourage thinking about the epistemological, ontological and methodological questions and challenges relating to community research.
Community research and social science
A range of different terms have been used to refer to methodologies that aim to draw on âlocalâ, âemicâ or âinsiderâ knowledge through the involvement of community members, including âactionâ, âparticipatoryâ and âempowermentâ research to, more recently, the use of the term âcommunityâ research, which encompasses âpeerâ, âcitizenâ and âuserâ research practice. In this edited collection, community research is defined as the practice of engaging community members as co-researchers to research issues within their own communities with a view to accessing community specific knowledge. We recognise, however, that communities are not necessarily bound by spatial proximities or localised interpersonal relationships, but can also exist beyond geographical locations as communities of shared interest or common experience.
The community research approach ultimately involves collaboration between professional social researchers, funding agencies and the group or organisation being researched, to utilise âcommunity-based knowledgeâ to create new knowledge for the purpose of deepening our understanding or building theory about a particular community or issue, or to stimulate action-oriented outcomes and policy change. The community research process can sometimes involve a period of training to prepare community members (general citizens, service users) to work alongside professional researchers, be they academics, consultants or practitioners, in all, or part, of the research process. Unlike traditional research in which researchers generate research themes and interpret findings, but similar to some of the participatory or action research approaches outlined above, community research often involves community members in shaping research agendas, owning the research process and reaching collaborative conclusions (see Goodson and Phillimore, 2010).
Arnstein (1969) argues that equipping communities with the skills to have some control in the development of their own knowledge base and some control and power to bring about change can improve the quality of their own lives. For her, this approach is at the highest level of achievement on the ladder of participation, which ranges from manipulation and non participation on the bottom rung through to citizen control and power at the top. Participation is a nebulous concept and can mean different things to different people. A review of the participation literature (Brodie et al, 2009), which explored the range of participation activities people engage in, identified three categories of participation. The first is public or âvertical participationâ, whereby individuals engage with the state, democratic structure and institutions, such as getting involved in government consultations, for example. The second is social or âhorizontal participationâ, which refers to the activities in which individuals engage collectively, such as being a member of a community group. The third is individual or âeveryday politicsâ, which refers to the choices individuals make on a day-to-day basis which are statements about the type of society in which they wish to live, such as buying fair trade goods, signing petitions or supporting a worthy cause.
The contributions in this book illustrate the diversity, different interests and contexts in which community can, and is, used. Contributions range from discussions of fully participatory and action-oriented research projects (see Gomez et al, this volume) to more traditional research approaches that involve members of the community as data collectors (see Brown et al, this volume). The rationale for including a diverse range of projects is to enable the exploration of theoretical, methodological and practical issues and to illuminate the challenges, as well as the strengths and weaknesses associated with different community research approaches. Although all projects share common ground in involving communities in the research process in some way, the extent to which communities have power or control over the research process differs markedly. Different types of community research projects can be represented on a continuum, illustrated in Figure 1.1, according to the breadth and depth of community involvement, the stage at which community members become involved and the level of power and autonomy community members have over the research process. Furthermore, the projects vary in the extent to which they aim to promote action to resolve social problems or inequalities. While participatory approaches, aiming to improve the lives of individuals through empowering communities or improve their capacity to facilitate change, have been argued to be the most desirable way to conduct research (Greenwood and Levin, 1998), we need to acknowledge that in reality this is not always the way projects play out in practice for a whole range of different reasons. Even those projects that start with the best of intentions may be constrained by factors such as the overall project aim (often defined by the project funder/sponsor) and duration of projects, research budgets, interests of different actors, and lack of resources.
The chapters in this book demonstrate a variety of different models of community research, with varying levels of involvement, empowerment, participation and impact on people, policy and practice. The activities and actions involved in community research projects can straddle one, or all three, types of participation outlined in Brodie et alâs (2009) model. Type of participation is influenced by the focus of projects; the way they are managed and the level of community researcher involvement in shaping the research agenda; their role in the interpretation of research findings; the extent to which they are involved in âactionâ-type lobbying or change-seeking activities and individual progression onto other projects, work or training. The chapters in this book demonstrate that models of community research can be conceived of as âjoint endeavoursâ wherein community and professional researchers come together in a bid to access local or insider knowledge.
Figure 1.1 The relationship between community researchersâ level of involvement and power and control
The concept of âlocal knowledgeâ has been a preoccupation of scholars from different disciplines for many years, including Anthropology (see Geertz, 1973, 1983), Sociology (see Berger and Luckman, 1966) and Planning (see Arnstein, 1969). In the 1960s and 1970s planning scholars (Gans, 1968; Arnstein, 1969; Kramer, 1969; Gilbert and Eaton, 1970; Pivan and Cloward, 1977) sought to oppose models that relied on technical planners making decisions on behalf of local residents, without taking account of local knowledge. Around the same time the works of Freire (1972) in developmental education and his seminal piece, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, expressed the importance of dialogue and practice that, rather than involving individuals to act on each other, entailed them working with one another. His preoccupation with the production of dialogue not only adds to knowledge but makes a difference to, and is situated in, the lived experience of participants and opened up new ways of working within educational practices which has since traversed disciplinary boundaries. Geertzâs work on local knowledge (1983) and his earlier arguments focusing on âthick descriptionâ (1973) led to what has become known as âthe interpretive turnâ, which refers to the âturn[ing] from trying to explain social phenomena by weaving them into grand textures of cause and effect to trying to explain them by placing them in local frames of awarenessâ (Geertz, 1983: 6). The works of Berger and Luckman (1966) and those engaged in feminist standpoint theory (see Haraway, 1988; Alcoff and Potter, 1993) further strengthen the belief that social realities relate to personal experience and as such are âsituatedâ rather than universalised. Thinking about âlocal knowledgeâ as situational and developing out of lived experiences, places it in a phenomenological context as a legitimate and valuable source of knowledge (Yanow, 2004).
Community research aims to bring together both local and experiential knowledge to form what we refer to in this book as âcommunityâ knowledge. From a methodological point of view community research has its roots in âparticipatoryâ, âactionâ and âempowermentâ research (Fals-Borda and Rahman, 1991; Tolley and Bentley, 1996; Kemmis and McTaggart, 2000; Reason and Bradbury, 2001; Coghlan and Brannick, 2007; Stringer, 2007; McIntyre, 2008). Community research cannot be defined by a single approach, but rather an approach that can cross-cut a number of methods with the overall intention of helping communities and those who work with them to gain better understanding of social life, problems or processes with a view to advancing theory or bringing change or benefits for the community. Community research can have similar objectives to participatory action research in seeking change or improvements relating to a particular practice or policy.
A fundamental difference between community research and participatory action research concerns the position of the research, which leads to a slight departure of the two approaches on epistemological grounds relating to the way in which knowledge is acquired. In participatory action research projects practitioners and facilitators usually have a strong foundation in the field, but are not necessarily part of the community under research, while for community research projects a fundamental requirement is that community researchers belong to, or at least share common ground with the intended participants. A significant difference between mainstream (positivist) and participatory research methodologies relates to the position of power in the research process (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995). Research located within the participatory paradigm challenges traditional positivist notions of research, whereby research is considered the exclusive domain of âobjectiveâ scientists (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Silverman, 2005). Like other interpretative approaches such as action research and some feminist methodologies (see Alcoff and Potter, 1993), which have emerged following concerns about the politics of research, community research problematises control and power within the research process, especially between the researcher and the researched, and the extent to which community researchers have control over the research process depends on their level of involvement at different stages (see Figure 1.1).
In social research the ability to tap into âcommunityâ knowledge requires a methodology that enables familiarity and understanding of the particulars of the local/community situation to emerge through tapping into the rich understanding held by people in particular contexts. These understandings become known as a result of their interactions and experiences with other people, programmes, operations or objects (Yanow, 2004). Community research represents a clear move away from top down research, in the type of knowledge and data which it aims to produce. It adopts the standpoint that community members are âexpertsâ within their field of experience or as Gramsci has argued âorganic intellectualsâ (1971), people who utilise their local knowledge from life experience to address changes and problems in society. Involving community researchers in all aspects of the research process means projects are more likely to succeed methodologically; from initial recruitment of community researchers, to the quality of data collected, retention rates and the satisfaction level of community researchers themselves (see Barnes et al, 2000; Kemshall and Littlechild, 2000; Gonsalves, 2005); and gain access to authentic community knowledge.
In their Handbook of Qualitative Research, Denzin and Lincoln (2005) categorise the history of research in the 20th century and beyond into eight phases. Community research and participatory research have a similar heritage that can be traced back to both phenomenology and p...
