Images and indicators: mixing participatory methods to build inclusive rigour

Abstract

Participatory methods seek to counter the extractive nature of mainstream research methods by putting control into the hands of research subjects. But participation itself does not guarantee against extraction. There is a tension between the desire for researcher-control and the prerogative of community action in participatory methods. How can researchers committed to participation manage this tension? In this paper, we draw on the concepts of “collaborative” and “action-oriented” participatory research to describe how integrating mixed-methodologies can help different research stakeholders attain desirable, fruitful and meaningful levels of ownership and build inclusive rigour. Drawing on our work with participatory indicators and photovoice with conflict affected communities in rural Colombia, we demonstrate how combining different kinds of participatory research methods—in this case, non-visual and visual research—creates opportunities to attend to the sometimes conflicting goals of robust research, policy change and community action. Under the broad umbrella of participatory research, collaborative approaches like participatory indicators and action-oriented approaches like photovoice complement and amplify each other in such settings, embracing complexity and catalyzing multiple ways of ‘knowing-for-action’. The result is participatory research that is attuned to the complexities of conflict-affected settings, inclusively rigorous and potentially transformative.