Choosing to Do Participatory Research

Alvarez, Ann Rosegrant; Gutiérrez, Lorraine

doi:10.1300/j125v09n01_01

Cited by 37 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Participatory research was adopted through co-production 25 as the overarching study design. Eight focus groups were conducted with ASRs, support workers, and volunteers to explore their experiences of ASRs’ accessing health care.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asylum seekers’ and refugees’ experiences of accessing health care: a qualitative study

et al. 2021

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BackgroundAsylum seekers and refugees often experience poor health in host countries. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees requires hosts to ensure these sanctuary seekers have access to basic health care.AimTo identify barriers and facilitators that affect access to health care by asylum seekers and refugees in Wales.Design & settingParticipatory research approach using qualitative focus groups across Wales, which hosts 10,000 refugees..MethodEight focus groups with asylum seekers, refugees and support workers and volunteers.(n=57)ResultsSpecialist NHS-funded services and grant-aided Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) facilitate access to health care, including primary care. Most asylum seekers and refugees understand the role of general practice in providing and coordinating care but are unaware of services out of hours. Reported barriers include: language difficulties, health literacy, unrecognised needs, and the cost of travel to appointments. Participants recognise the importance of mental health, but were disappointed by the state of mental health care. Some fear seeking support for mental health from their GP, but few are aware they have the right to move practice if they were unhappy. Written information about health care is not as accessible to refugees as to asylum seekers. While some participants read such material before consulting, others struggle to access information when in need. Few participants are aware of health prevention services. Even when they know about services like smoking cessation, these services’ difficulty in accommodating asylum seekers and refugees is a barrier.ConclusionMain barriers are: availability of interpreters; knowledge about entitlements; and access to specialist services.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asylum seekers’ and refugees’ experiences of accessing health care: a qualitative study

et al. 2021

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“…For example, within the community practice tradition, community-based participatory research (CBPR) and other "action research" methodologies attempt to integrate intervention with research, flattening out hierarchies between the producers and consumers of knowledge (Alvarez & Guti errez, 2001;Keita et al, 2016). But such approaches to research remain marginal in the field because they are not usually intended to produce the generalizable findings valued in much social work research (Alvarez & Guti errez, 2001;Kang, 2015). Thus, the dominant view in social work is that CBPR offers "cases" that can inform the search for regularities, while the search itself is pursued via experimental and statistical methods.…”

Section: The Donor-recipient Relationship and Its Discontentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interrogating culture: Anthropology, social work, and the concept trade

Mathias

Gulbas

Chin

et al. 2020

Journal of Social Work

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Summary Interdisciplinary contributions to social work have supported the profession’s development as a helping profession. Indeed, drawing from other disciplines has been a way to hone intervention approaches. This article analyzes the history of social work’s use of anthropological theory about “culture” in order to critically examine the profession’s positioning as a “recipient” of theories. At a time when evidence-based practice is a dominant ideal, this paper offers an opportunity to step back and interrogate a key concept, culture, that is often evoked as interventions are tailored for various populations. Findings While social work has substantially debated and revised how it approaches culture difference, the core conceptualization of culture as a relatively static set of shared values and traits remains ill-suited to the complex negotiation of diversity in social work practice. The limitations of the culture concept are symptomatic of an exchange relationship with anthropology that positions social work practitioners primarily as recipients of concepts, rather than as interlocutors. Application By treating intervention as an opportunity for theory revision, anthropologists and social workers can better account for the hybridity, change, and contestation of difference in social work practice. As the social work profession expands globally, a more dialogical engagement with anthropological theories about culture and other key concepts may prove fruitful.

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“…As an explicitly liberatory research strategy, it is not enough for people to merely understand the causes of the problems in their communities, they must also work collectively to change the systems that negatively impact their lives (Alvarez & Gutierrez 2001;Maguire 1987;Sohng 1996). Within PAR, significant emphasis is placed on the utilisation of research results by the community partners and many research agendas include the action component as part of the research project data (Gaventa 1988;Paradis 2009;Sohng 1996).…”

Section: Community-university Partnerships and Transformative Learninmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the empowerment expectation: Learning, alienation and design possibilities in community-university research

Curnow

2017

Gateways

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As community-university partnerships have become mainstream, researchers have argued that these approaches have the potential to be transformative, supporting community learning and creating capacity for community development. While this remains the dominant narrative of community research, some researchers have questioned the impacts of community research on frontline community, or peer, researchers who represent partnerships in their communities. These studies complicate the narrative, suggesting that learning and capacity building are not straightforward processes. While on the whole community-university partnerships tend to be empowering for community researchers, research is needed to understand the experiences of community researchers for whom this is not the case. My research examines a Toronto-based community-university participatory action research partnership, asking what community researchers learnt through their participation. I argue that, while community researchers learnt a great deal from their participation, the overall impact was not empowerment, but alienation. They did have their knowledge of community validated, and they built research skills, developed grievances through their conversations with neighbours and interrogated the links between grievances, all of which were important aspects of their participation. However, through the process they developed, or entrenched, a sense of powerlessness and dependence on the university researchers to take up their cause politically. This contradicts the aspirations of community-university partnership models, especially participatory action research, and raises questions about the inevitability of empowering social action stemming from these research projects. I argue that the disempowerment that the community researchers reported points to the need for community research to be embedded within existing social action organisations and infrastructure to provide clearer pathways to action because, without this, peer researchers may become overwhelmed by the scope of the grievances in their neighbourhoods and withdraw from, rather than embrace, the need for collective social action.

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Choosing to Do Participatory Research

Cited by 37 publications

References 19 publications

Asylum seekers’ and refugees’ experiences of accessing health care: a qualitative study

Asylum seekers’ and refugees’ experiences of accessing health care: a qualitative study

Interrogating culture: Anthropology, social work, and the concept trade

Challenging the empowerment expectation: Learning, alienation and design possibilities in community-university research

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