Social Work in a Diverse Society by Williams Charlotte Graham Mekada J

Author:Williams, Charlotte, Graham, Mekada J. [Williams, Charlotte, Graham, Mekada J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781447322641
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2016-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

Research

A central part of RAPAR’s purpose is to develop and deliver research. RAPAR encourages people to participate in the generation of research and knowledge based on their lived experiences. It is the generation of this research that provides the evidence that can inform casework, community organising and development, and the various campaigning strategies adopted by the organisation and its members.

In the ideal, given the commitment to action research, all individuals and/or groups should be involved in the researching process. For example, in the Somali research cited earlier, it was necessary to involve everyone: the excluded children, parents, teachers, youth service workers and local government officers.

However, there are often power differences between participants within the research process. These differences are expressed through actual human behaviours within physical environments that are situated inside structural and organisational hierarchies (Wright Mills, 1967), and these differences can both inhibit and/or complicate participatory processes. Recognising this is important; it means that RAPAR builds research in ways that are designed to interrogate, challenge and even alter those power relations within the researching processes themselves.

For example, in the Somali research, through respecting cultural frameworks and social mores – which is possible when some of the RAPAR members are from those communities – and by continuously reflecting back and then affirming and developing the data as they emerge, various power relations can be confronted, and research approaches reflected upon. This grows individual and group confidence in the value of what is being researched because the community is the co-producer of the knowledge and data that are now being used to ‘speak truth to power’. It is these commitments that underpinned RAPAR’s work and led to the publication of ‘Doing research with refugees’ (Temple and Moran, 2006), which included a set of research guidelines for future researchers to follow.

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