Whose Reality Counts? Co-researching the government cuts and the Big Society

There are many ways to think about society, and the people in it, when considering policy. Traditionally, a lot of social research, undertaken by objective experts, has taken people as subjects, examining their lives through statistics about income, housing, health, education and the like, or from the critical distance of the outside interviewer. These methods in social policy are long-established and not to be dismissed lightly; statistical analysis can flag up problems and inequalities invisible to the naked eye, whilst qualitative research can help explain why and how these issues manifest. But when a research project is designed, shaped and delivered by outside experts – however well meaning – whose reality is really being uncovered?

In nef’s work on the New Austerity and the Big Society, we have decided against a traditional approach where we could play it safe, lead the research ourselves and stay within our comfort zones. Such an approach could only take us so far. Instead, we have chosen to repress our instincts to directly manage the research in order to privilege the knowledge and experience of local people.  To do this we are recruiting and training peer researchers who will co-produce this project with us from the outset.

In a nutshell peer research is a way of designing and delivering a research project with the people you would normally research – in our case people from the local communities in Tottenham and Birmingham. By training peer researchers in social science methods and then working with them to set research themes, identify research questions, undertake interviews and analyse the findings, you start to break down hierarchies between researchers and the researched. This gives us privileged access into people’s lives and communities. As people living and working in these areas, they are researchers of the everyday; the conversations they have, the exciting and banal events they see connect them to the rhythms of place in ways we are not. As such, their ways of understanding and knowing their areas challenge us and help to ground our all-too-often abstract expertise. In short, through peer research, you start to open your project up to different ways of knowing, understanding and expressing reality. 

Of course, working with peer researchers does make the process harder and the ends more uncertain. Before we started we spoke to several experts in peer research. One warned us that there are a number of practical and ethical concerns that we would have to bear in mind: Are the peer researchers reflective of their communities? Do they speak for their communities, or from a position of distanced privilege? How will the research affect them, and their position within their communities? Will the research they produce be rigorous and bias-free? Will, or can, they stay with us throughout the process when they are juggling jobs, families and everyday life themselves?

Yet, despite these challenges, the peer research approach has proven very rewarding so far – for all of us. The peer researchers’ have talked favourably of this approach as it gives them an opportunity to get their experiences, and the experiences of their community, heard in ways of their choosing (so far plans include photography, a blog site and a documentary – watch this space). It was clear from the first session that they see this research as very different from previous projects they have been involved in and all the more interesting as a result.  

Finally, working with peer research brings with it many rewards for us too. This is about so much more than sitting behind a desk, or parachuting in to an area for a day to put a few selected people under the spotlight before returning back to your desk to write a report. This is about engaging and working with people in a team to design, shape and deliver the research together in an on-going process. From a personal perspective we get a much bigger kick out of working in this way.

To stay in touch with this project subscribe to our social policy mailing list. And, if you’re interested in reading more about peer research, here are some links to the information we found most useful:

1. For a good overview, look at Sheffield University’s pamphlet Peer Research Methodology: http://bit.ly/n3JPu1
2. For a detailed reflection of the ethical and practical considerations look at Ros Edward’s and Claire Alexander’s chapter “Researching with Peer/Community researchers – ambivalences and tensions”, in the SAGE handbook of innovation in social research methods: http://bit.ly/pt3Ufb
3. For quick introduction this video by the Toronto Community-Based Research Network (TCBRN) on the experiences of peer research from the researchers perspective is interesting: http://vimeo.com/2780761
4. For those with academic journal access Stephanie Burns’ and Dirk Schuboltz’s article is worth a look, “Demonstrating the merits of the peer research process: a Northern Ireland case study”, in Field Methods: http://bit.ly/nMhc1F