ARVAC Bulletin 100

Why Fund Community Research

Just a few days after receiving the invitation to write this article, I also received a letter from ARVAC stating that, due to a decision by a funder, ARVAC’s future funding had become uncertain. I cannot say I was surprised. A number of organisations I have worked with have told me similar stories over the last few months. With the end of European funding in the UK we knew there would be major changes. It has also been clear that competition for remaining funds would be intensified as the number of new organisations spawned by Neighbourhood Renewal Funding increased.

Before receiving the letter, I had intended to use this article to highlight the significance of community-based research in developing a distinctive approach to community development. I had also planned to state the value of ARVAC in stimulating discussion around how research originates and who controls the outcomes. After receiving the letter, I decided I would still write about these things, but I would also have to tackle that thorniest of questions: funding.

I first came across ARVAC some five years ago. At that time I was starting to work with a Muslim voluntary sector organisation. My first priority was to enable them to articulate their community’s needs and aspirations in their own words. My second challenge was to convince the public sector to listen to them. I quickly realised there was a logic to the approach which invited the community to use the methods of community-based research as a vehicle for doing that. It became apparent that not only was there a value in the community gathering its own information but that this approach extended to the testing of its understanding of community dynamics through weighing up this evidence. I had the feeling that we were getting beyond the stereotypes and closer to the “real world”. The dynamics were much messier than the neat formulae so beloved by policy makers, administrators and politicians, but they were authentic.

I have to admit it was rather more difficult to convince the public sector of the value of this approach. However, with the help of some under spends in the budgets of some imaginative Government offices it was possible to confirm that such an approach offered something distinctively helpful to all parties interested in community-based regeneration. We tried the approach in three other regions and even other faith-based groups.

Interestingly, using community-based narratives and evidence seems to work particularly well with faith-based organisations, those same organisations that politicians, officers and administrators are increasingly trying to reach. Could it be that these faiths are so comfortable with stories as a vehicle for articulating and exploring the most profound issues that they naturally turn to such narrative when they want their communities to listen and respond to ideas?

On a personal level, thinking back to those occasions when I have been involved in consultations about difficult issues, I naturally turned to stories and evidence that I have gathered myself. When consulting with my children for example, I took great pains to try and ensure the stories related to their experience and was expressed in their language. So perhaps I am prejudiced in favour of community-based research as a vehicle for doing and communicating community-based regeneration. I cannot prove it is better than other methods of understanding and connecting disengaged individuals and neighbourhoods, but I can say that that has been my experience. I can also confirm that it makes communication more lively as well as more possible.

Whilst discussing these issues is still worthwhile, the current situation gives my article something of the feeling of dancing on the deck while the boat sinks into an abyss of debt and poverty. That such a situation should come to pass is doubly surprising given the Government’s commitment to community and voluntary sector activity. Since the review of funding, there has been no let up in the number of documents espousing the cause of community-based activity, yet the term community-based activity, community-originated activity or community-defined activity are not used.

Rather, it is ‘service delivery’ that is to be supported and it is only those agencies involved in this, which are to receive a reward of increased Government funding. This reality sits altogether less comfortably within a community development strategy that begins with communities defining their own issues through their own research. Such activity inherently poses questions for delivery organisations, rather than indicating technical solutions. Take unemployment for example. Many officials, who have never been unemployed, are clear about its meaning. Most are very clear about the barriers that prevent those without employment from finding work. The same people are even clearer about how unemployed individuals can overcome barriers. Community-based research however, cannot easily accept such certainty. Offering unemployed people a space to articulate their own views and perceptions inevitability appears to generate altogether more complicated answers. Such an approach suggests that the reasons why people experience unemployment are multiple. Interrupted education through illness interacts with racial prejudice and postcode discrimination to produce a discomfortingly complex picture to which officials struggle to respond.

Does this invalidate community-based research? Several individuals will be relieved at not being further exposed to the views of social groups for whom they produce policy. The same officials are perhaps doubly relieved when consultation meetings can be held in the comparative tranquillity of a Town Hall boardroom rather than brave the hurley burley of a community hall.

This complexity reminds us that creating priorities is a political and not a scientific act. The contest for resources and outcomes is often not based on simple need or justice. Community-based research, if it does nothing more, uncovers this process with vivid clarity. By articulating the views of the community, ARVAC is playing its part in a process that inevitably makes those in power uncomfortable. Perhaps even more so when that power is used for the benefit of the powerless.

What has happened to ARVAC is only one part of the wider context. At the same time we must honestly note that there has not been a huge outcry at the threat under which ARVAC is now placed. In part this is due to few people knowing about the situation - a relatively small voluntary infrastructure support network can not be expected to elicit the same wide spread sympathy as frontline voluntary organisations who are currently experiencing the same threats. It is also true that not all members and supporters of ARVAC are voluntary and community groups. At the recent ARVAC AGM it was possible to see many individuals from the university and public sectors, most of whom have used the facilities and delivered worthwhile research. That their research was valuable and significant is not in question. ARVAC has nevertheless found itself dominated to some extent by these organisations, which possibly reduced the protection available in these challenging times.

There are few enough opportunities for voluntary and community organisations to dominate and they certainly have not dominated ARVAC over the last few years. Such comments however can only form a minor criticism and feel churlish in the current situation. After all, those running ARVAC can only legitimately respond to organisations that have the capacity and interest to engage in community-based research. If community and voluntary organisations are not themselves forthcoming, what can ARVAC do?

But not all is lost. New funds are advertised and whilst it is true that competition is as fierce as ever, perhaps necessity will prove the mother of invention. Now may be the time for ARVAC to demonstrate its worth by promoting community-based research to the voluntary and community sectors with greater intensity. It might also be possible for ARVAC to broker slightly more challenging relationships between the voluntary and community sector and higher education, which in turn could facilitate sustained research whilst creating politically adroit partnerships. Sometimes community-based research cannot only identify some surprising issues but also some surprising solutions. For that very reason the community has to hope and work towards making sure ARVAC continues to advocate and evidence the community’s voice in determining the future direction of community developments.

Mick Sheldon is the director of Inside Track (Euro), a member of The Community Research Factory and the director of the Chorlton Workshop.

Inside Track is a member of the Manchester Local Strategic Partnership, the North West Development Agency, Manchester Social Enterprise Forum, Manchester Progressive Enterprise Network and Manchester Learning Skills Network.

Visit www.insidetrackeuro.com

Contact: mick@insidetrackeuro.com