By Truphena E. Mukuna and Alemu Tesfaye Shekunte.
2. Alemu Tesfaye Shekunte (biography)
What role do communities play in shaping research that affects their lives? How can academia break free from the constraints of traditional disciplinary boundaries to foster more inclusive knowledge production? We explore these questions based on our experience in researching forced displacement.
The challenge of traditional research methodologies
Historically, much research in the Global South has been dominated by Western perspectives and methodologies. These often lack cultural relevance and fail to engage meaningfully with the communities they study. Consequently, the resulting body of knowledge can be disconnected from the lived realities of those studied. In addition, disciplinary biases often overshadow the philosophical underpinnings of research methods. Researchers may adopt a ‘positivist’ or ‘constructivist’ stance or prefer ‘quantitative’ over ‘qualitative’ methods. However, in building effective transdisciplinary research relationships and decolonizing research it is essential to incorporate diverse ontological and epistemological viewpoints from various disciplines and other kinds of knowledge. Here we highlight these two key elements of transdisciplinary research – knowledge co-production and bridging disciplines and other kinds of knowledge – demonstrating the importance of bringing them together.
Knowledge co-production: a collaborative approach
Knowledge co-production connects researchers with diverse societal actors to collaboratively and iteratively produce knowledge, action, and societal change. This approach promises to develop solutions through legitimate processes that draw on diverse and credible expertise, working with and for those best placed to use the knowledge. A collaborative process ensures that the perspectives and experiences of those directly affected are central to the research.
Four key elements of knowledge co-production are:
- Community engagement from the outset is essential. This involves communities in defining research questions, methodologies, and outcomes, ensuring that the research is relevant and responsive to their needs.
- Equitable partnerships between researchers from the Global North and South are crucial. This includes sharing funding, resources, and authorship, ensuring that Southern scholars have equal opportunities to lead and contribute to research projects.
- Participatory methods, such as focus groups, storytelling, and participatory mapping, capture the richness of individuals’ experiences. These methods help document oral histories and indigenous narratives that are often overlooked in traditional research.
- Ethical considerations should prioritize the dignity, rights, and welfare of individuals. This includes obtaining informed consent, protecting participant confidentiality, and avoiding exploitative practices.
Bridging knowledge systems
Four steps instrumental in bridging knowledge systems are:
- Integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives: Bringing together researchers from different disciplines can offer a more comprehensive understanding. For instance, combining insights from environmental science and sociology can reveal how climate change drives migration and how social structures impact displaced communities.
- Incorporating local knowledge: Prioritizing local knowledge and indigenous perspectives recognizes that they offer unique insights and solutions often missing from Western-centric studies.
- Collaborative problem-solving: Collaboration between academics, policymakers, and community members ensures that research findings are academically rigorous, and practically relevant and actionable.
- Fostering innovation: Integrating diverse knowledge systems can lead to innovative solutions. For example, combining traditional agricultural practices with modern technology can help displaced communities adapt to new environments and secure their livelihoods.
Generating solutions that are culturally relevant, socially just, and practically effective
Generating such solutions requires both knowledge co-production and bridging knowledge systems:
- Holistic understanding recognizes the interconnectedness of social, economic, political, and environmental factors, providing a more nuanced view of the relevant problem.
- Cultural relevance ensuring that research is rooted in the lived experiences of those affected and that it integrates diverse knowledge systems. Together, they promote cultural relevance and respect for indigenous practices and perspectives.
- Social justice whereby challenging dominant Western paradigms and valuing the voices and agency of affected communities addresses historical and structural inequities in knowledge production.
- Practical solutions through the collaborative and inclusive nature of involving community members in the research process can develop interventions that are both effective and sustainable.
Concluding questions
As we strive to decolonize research, how are you designing, implementing, evaluating and institutionalizing knowledge co-production and the bridging of knowledge systems in your work? How have your used co-production frameworks to ensure the equitable integration of indigenous and local knowledge systems without reinforcing power imbalances or marginalizing non-academic contributors? Have you developed innovative strategies to foster long-term partnerships between academic researchers and community stakeholders to co-create sustainable and actionable knowledge? And in a world driven by rapid technological advancement, have you leveraged digital tools and platforms to enhance participatory research while maintaining inclusivity and accessibility for all knowledge contributors?
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence).
Biography: Truphena Mukuna PhD is Executive Director at the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She conducts transdisciplinary transformative research and feminist participatory action research on vulnerable populations to offer life-changing, cost-effective solutions and see improvement in people’s lives.
Biography: Alemu Tesfaye Shekunte MBA is Regional Programs Manager (Research, Communication, Knowledge Management and ICT (Information and Communications Technology)) at the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His interests include communication, knowledge management and translation, and community engagement.
Truphena and Alemu, you have very well expressed ideas that need to considered and worked with. I carefully use the term “worked with” because often great and good ideas (like yours) in thought often get lost in implementation especially when it comes to working with peoplke at grassroots level. I have some experience of working on such projects with FAO in India and Mexico so I know a little of the difficulties. Community engagement is necessary for development in these troubling times. There are a lot of ‘experiments’ across the world to learn from but there is a need for a global consortium linking a number of innovative initiatives on the lines you have suggested. This is (to borrow the term from a Canadian project) a “Challenge for Change”. Also we have to remember the old adage—There is North in the South and South in the North.
Hello Truphena and Alemu. Thank you for this very well structured and thoughtful piece. The only addition/modification I would make is in your statement on Fostering Innovation where you state that: “For example, combining traditional agricultural practices with modern technology can help displaced communities adapt to new environments and secure their livelihoods”. I would add into the phrase “traditional agricultural practices”, the point that these agricultural practices are rooted in a specific sense of connectivity with natural life forces (of which we are a part). So I would state this sentence as:
For example, combining traditional agricultural practices and traditional ways of understanding and nurturing connections with nature (of which we are a part) with modern technology can help displaced communities adapt to new environments and secure their livelihoods.
It would also perhaps be good if you explained what you mean by modern technology so that this is not associated with “modern” invention of pervasive use of pesticides, GMO production of seeds, and chemical fertilizer use, which damages not only the environment such as the rivers and soil, but also people’s health and welfare. I would therefore add that traditional agricultural practices are based on organic farming in gentle relationship with nature and learning from nature’s classroom (as well as sharing of ideas and practices for resilience across communities ). Would you agree with this?
All good wishes, Norma
Great, practical, and deep article ! timely – 100.001 thanks !
Not just talk and write but do and share ! in COMMON FRAMES OF REFERENCES.
It resonantes much with what we did a few years ago around a recent “Science and Arts” competition event and even 30+ years ago: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=heiner+benking+falling+walls
Let us share and act in COMMON FRAMES OF REFERENCES ! or what we called 30 years ago a COGNITIVE PANORAMA !
sorry – wrong link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/infographics-insights_staceymatrix-strategicinsights-decisionmaking-activity-7251553509509062656-NyXE?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
What a clear and sensible article – thank you for writing it. Regarding community engagement, a long-time practitioner whose work may interest you is Chris Corrigan, a Canadian whose Art of Hosting class I participated in a few years ago. His latest blog post appears at https://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/practice-notes-teaching-the-art-of-participatory-leadership/. He’s easy to reach. I could imagine your comparing notes and finding common ground. Good luck to you in this important work!