‘Doing it right?’: working with young researchers in Malawi to investigate children, transport and mobility

Robson, Elsbeth; Porter, Gina; Hampshire, Kate; Bourdillon, Michael

doi:10.1080/14733280903234535

Cited by 47 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…It was also identified as the optimal way within our project to promote ownership of the project at the local level. However, as Robson et al (2009) reflect, trained young researchers found it difficult to negate their 'privileged' positions marked by associating with professionals and foreigners, travelling in vehicles and possessing research tools. For the local PV team, although they acknowledged that being community members themselves helped to break barriers and encourage participation, being paid by the project led to some people trying to get their favour in the hope of benefits, while others accused them of using community information to make money for themselves.…”

Section: The Context Of Our Engagement With Local Researchersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using her own experiences as a research assistant, Rogers-Dillon (2005) describes compromising instincts to please the (sometimes perceived) wishes of superiors, trying to apply the academic research approach and concepts on the ground without the authority to actually adapt them to the contextual realities, difficulties of managing emotions while in the field, attempting to behave within the protocols of a research project designed by someone else, and managing conflicts in values with fellow researchers. Robson et al (2009) evaluate some of the unintentional consequences for child researchers while working with young people on mobility in Malawi. For example, in trying to respect children's rights to be heard, some young researchers felt that attending project workshops during term-time was prejudicial to their school learning, although the research itself constituted beneficial extracurricular training and long-term employment opportunities (Hampshire et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Between a rock and a hard place: Ethical dilemmas of local community facilitators doing participatory research projects

et al. 2015

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Participatory research is supposed to involve participants in a collective definition of goals and the co-production and sharing of research outputs. However, when articulated through an extended period of time involving a range of local, national and international actors, the practicalities of participatory research means that certain groups and individuals become responsible for taking leading roles, with subsequent ethical dilemmas. In the 'Community-owned solutions for future environmental challenges in the Guiana Shield, South America' (COBRA) project, the participatory research process involves a group of five Indigenous researchers -"the local team" -in charge of carrying out the research on the ground e.g. defining procedures, carrying out community engagement and supporting the communities in analysing and disseminating the material. This local team is, in turn, supported by researchers from a national NGO and foreign academics.Considerable responsibility has been given to the local team for achieving project outcomes, and freedom in defining project tasks and activities. This paper analyses the multiple ethical dilemmas arising out of this situation, particularly the role of the local team as intermediaries between the wider community and project partners. We highlight the existence of significant mismatches between research expectations, and the ethical processes in operation at community level which are usually established on long-term, tacit and reciprocal relationships. We discuss how local community researchers are challenged with balancing the tensions between these two ethical polarities, while at the same time producing participatory research outcomes that are acceptable by everyone involved.

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Section: The Context Of Our Engagement With Local Researchersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between a rock and a hard place: Ethical dilemmas of local community facilitators doing participatory research projects

et al. 2015

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“…In the first phase, a questionnaire survey was conducted to find out the situation of youth in the compound, especially in relation to employment. A group of young people from the settlement itself were trained to administer the questionnaire as this form of participatory peer-led research generates a high response rate and can result in the best insights (Gough et al, 2014;Porter and Abane, 2008;Robson et al, 2009;). Altogether 369 questionnaires were conducted with randomly selected young people aged 15-35 in line with the Zambian definition of youth (Chigunta, 2007).…”

Section: Researching Youth In Lusakamentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding the scales and domains of (in)security: Youth employment in urban Zambia

2015

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Most research on issues of (in)security has tended to have a military/safety angle and focus on global/national scales linked to spectacular events. This paper addresses the overlooked insecurity realities of urban dwellers in the global South through a focus on more persistent and enduring forms of employment insecurities among young people. Building on both quantitative and qualitative data collected in a low-income settlement in Lusaka, Zambia, we explore how young people perceive their employment situation and examine the practices they engage in when seeking ways of making a living. Through analysing their views and experiences we show how employment insecurity is influenced by processes operating at the body, local, national and global scales, and how employment insecurity is closely interconnected with insecurity in other domains of young people's lives including the household, housing and education. Although the youth unemployment situation is often viewed as a serious threat to human security, we show how the lack of stable employment in itself is a manifestation of insecurity.

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“…We worked with those young people - The statements show the extent to which training and work-experience within the two projects has helped these two young researchers grow since they joined as schoolchildren in 2006/7, but they also give some indication of the wider potential of co-investigation for supporting young people's empowerment (for which, see also Robson et al 2009. Tanzania, where the older people's groups with which HelpAge were working had already identified the high cost, unsuitability, scarcity and unreliability of public transport as significant issues limiting their access to key services.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on co-investigation through peer research with young people and older people in sub-Saharan Africa

Porter

2015

Qualitative Research

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. REFLECTIONS ON CO-INVESTIGATION THROUGH PEER RESEARCH WITH YOUNG PEOPLE AND OLDER PEOPLE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA AbstractThis paper reflects on a series of collaborative studies led by the author where coinvestigation with peer-researchers has played a central role. The first concerns work with young people, trained to enable them to participate as peer-researchers in a child mobility study in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa; the second a research project on youth and mobile phones, in which some of those young peer-researchers have a continued involvement; the third a study of older people's mobility in Tanzania, conducted in collaboration with an international NGO. Experience in these projects illustrates the complexities of coinvestigation, not least the ethical concerns which have to be addressed when working with commonly marginalized people, whatever their age, but it also highlights the potential rewards which such collaborations can bring to individual peer-researchers, to academic research quality and, in the longer term, towards better policy and practice.

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‘Doing it right?’: working with young researchers in Malawi to investigate children, transport and mobility

Cited by 47 publications

References 16 publications

Between a rock and a hard place: Ethical dilemmas of local community facilitators doing participatory research projects

Between a rock and a hard place: Ethical dilemmas of local community facilitators doing participatory research projects

Expanding the scales and domains of (in)security: Youth employment in urban Zambia

Reflections on co-investigation through peer research with young people and older people in sub-Saharan Africa

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