Sustainable Practices of Community-Based Research: Participatory and Critical Approaches to Qualitative Inquiry

Introduction

Participatory approaches to community-based research are designed to empower communities to co-produce knowledge in applied settings. These designs elevate the voices of co-researching participants and centers them as knowledgeable, agentic experts throughout research processes empowered to contribute to research design, data collection, data analysis, and findings interpretation for a sustainable, self-determined process of solving practical problems. Unfortunately, there are few qualitative inquiry methodologies specifically designed for participatory and community-based research.

Goals and Methods

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to describe the processes I used to design, re-imagine, and innovate four participatory and critical qualitative methods to be used with communities in conducting research for sustainable solutions to community problems. In this paper, I discuss the processes I used across the development of four critical and/or participatory qualitative practices: (1) Transformativist Needs Assessment with Marginalized Communities method, (2) Transformativist Measurement Development Methodology, (3) Critical Method of Document Analysis, and (4) Transformativist Method of Thick Description.

Results

The processes I used to design critical and participatory qualitative practices included six stages: (1) situate lived experiences in their appropriate contexts, (2) integrate an agentic practice for participants, (3) proceduralize the use of critical lenses throughout the method, (4) create step-wise research procedures accessible to community groups, (5) include an action-oriented practice within each method, and (6) include robust discussion of ethical considerations specific to critical and participatory approaches.

Conclusions

These methods elevate community voice, agency, and ownership of the research process. This allows data to be contextualized for holistic understanding while accomplishing sustainability goals such as increased investment, buy-in, and fidelity to actions of change when the research process is co-owned with the community.