Participatory approaches to research on poverty

The extent to which participatory approaches to research on poverty can give a voice to people with direct experience of poverty is explored by Fran Bennett.

Research is important because it shapes what kinds of knowledge and experience ‘count’, and because it helps frame public debate about people and issues. This being the case, it is clear that people directly affected by the issues being explored, should have more say in the research. This approach has already had some influence in user involvement (especially in health and social care), in the ‘emancipatory’ research of the disabled people’s movement and elsewhere. Now it is being promoted increasingly in relation to research and inquiry into poverty. In our recent report, Moerane Roberts and myself examine the ‘added value’ of participatory approaches to research and inquiry into poverty and explore some of the debates involved. We give an overview of the current state of participatory practice in research and inquiry into poverty in the UK, and make proposals as to how to take these approaches forward.

‘Participatory’ approaches respect the expertise of people with direct experience of poverty. They give them more control over the research process and more influence over how findings are used. This is not about just including personal quotes in an otherwise unchanged research report or about adding ‘subjective’ feelings to the ‘objective’ findings of the researcher. ‘Participatory’ is not just another name for qualitative research. Instead, it means people with direct experience of poverty having more voice in the various stages of the research process – from defining the issues at stake to working out solutions. There is clearly scope in much research on poverty for introducing a more participatory element at different stages.

There are methods that can be learned to put this into practice. Some of the 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.
But participatory research should be seen more as an approach than as a set of specific techniques. The case studies in our report include examples of more traditional research exercises, but also give examples of joint inquiry, in which people with experience of poverty and others worked together investigating specific issues.

Participatory approaches to research and inquiry into poverty can ‘add value’ by improving the quality of research. Research findings which are grounded in the lived realities of poverty enrich understanding and are also more likely to help arrive at policies which make sense to those affected. In addition, participatory approaches can bring gains to those involved, increasing their confidence and ‘voice’. This is a common assertion, and is often linked to empowerment as a process in community development and elsewhere. What is not so commonly argued, but may be just as important, is that participatory research can act as a learning process for those not living in poverty who are involved, such as policy-makers or academics. This can then have an effect beyond the one-off research exercise, and may result in the creation of new networks or better policy and practice. Participatory practice of course also embodies the principle of the right of people in poverty to influence images of poverty and public debate; and it can strengthen their claims to other rights and to full citizenship.

Complex issues do however arise when turning principle into practice. Many of the debates are being played out in the international development field as well as within anti-poverty practice in the UK and will be familiar to many people in community and voluntary sector research. What is optimum participation (as opposed to maximum participation), and how can it be achieved? Which are the crucial stages at which the genuine inclusion of people with experience of poverty will make a real difference – is it training them to be interviewers, or is it their involvement in making sense of the emerging findings? What are the costs of participation to people living in poverty and how can they be taken into account? How can differences of power be faced honestly? Whatever the ideal, participatory research may often in practice be an attempt to combine different forms of knowledge in a way that tries to create a more equal and two-way dynamic between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’.

Participatory approaches to poverty research in the UK are gaining ground, but if they are to become more mainstream, they need to feed into national level processes and be linked to wider policy change. Our report makes recommendations to social research funders, government and others, in particular to allow for the realistic resource requirements of participatory approaches, and to create spaces for sustained debates between policy-makers and people with direct experience of poverty.

Fran Bennett is a social policy analyst and academic. Moraene Roberts is an anti-poverty activist with ATD Fourth World. From Input to Influence: Participatory approaches to research and inquiry into poverty, (JRF 2004) is available from York Publishing, 64 Hallfield Road, Layerthorpe, York YO31 7ZQ (£15.95 plus £2 postage and packing). Both the report and the Findings can be downloaded free from www.jrf.org.uktop