Engaging Knowledge Diversity/Community Knowledge and Co-Inquiry

Community-based research (CBR): Research designed and conducted through collaboration between researchers and community members that takes place in community settings. CBR is a complex term that is often used interchangeably with terms such as “activist anthropology,” “collaborative community-based research,” “collaborative research,” “community-based participatory research,” “engaged scholarship,” “participatory action research,” “practitioner inquiry,” “public sociology,” and “translational research.”

Action Research: A type of research methodology in which research is conducted about an object of study and is at the same time applied toward changing the object of study, which is often a social phenomenon or system.

Bandy et al. propose a conceptual framework and practical guidance for the assessment of community engagement, considering its civic potential by performing democratically engaged assessment (DEA). This approach focuses on being and doing with the community, co-creating knowledge through multi-directional flows of ideas, transformative collaborations, and following values of co-creation, rigor, full participation, generativity, practicability, and resilience. To achieve this, practical guidance is offered to include DEA in the typical phases of assessment and among multiple stakeholders, such as communities, higher education institutions, students, and faculty. The authors conclude that assessment practices can challenge the normative paradigms that often limit the transformative potential of community engagement, but it requires developing critical and holistic methods that follow democratic values.

Banks et al. discuss challenges and opportunities of co-produced research projects and address debates around whether forms of co-produced research and community development are distinguishable. Scholars argue that co-produced research, specifically participatory-action research (PAR), confuses community development with research. Banks et al. concede that given the continuous cycle from reflection to research to action, it is essentially impossible to reach a point where it can be said that something is research or community development. However, what arguably sets PAR apart from community development is that those engaging in PAR explicitly intend to study something. Banks et al. explore the dynamics of co-produced research through outlining the work done within Imagine North East: a co-produced research project in North East England which investigated past, present, and future community development projects. Through exploring the three different components of Imagine North East, Banks et al. found that the co-inquiry process enabled partners to see the bigger historical, regional, and international picture of which they are a part. Banks et al. also identified key lessons: that it takes time to develop a shared aim, purpose, vision, and degree of trust within co-inquiry groups but that these attributes are vital to success.

Banks et al. explore co-inquiry as a research process through co-inquiry: a group of community partners, academics, and researchers collaborated to explore trends and patterns across four different case studies of co-inquiry projects. The group’s work was modelled after the concept of cooperative experiential inquiry and drew on the methodologies of community development work, critical community practice, and critical pedagogy. Through dialogue between community members and academics, the group identified several themes. Community members raised the issue of academic jargon repeatedly. Banks et al. argue that the issue of academic language is about more than just terminology: it has to do with power differentials, academic culture, and ways of knowing. For academics, the complications of occupying more than one role in a research project were challenging. Additionally, the group identified six benefits of engaging in co-inquiry action research which include: (1) broadening of theoretical knowledge, (2) developing practical knowledge, (3) deepening sensitivity, (4) stimulating reflexivity, (5) developing self-confidence, and (6) leading to further action. Ultimately, the group was able to address these challenges and create a space of collaborative reflexivity where co-inquirers were able to reflect on themselves, the influence of their position on the group, and importantly, the structure and dynamics of the group itself. Banks et al. conclude by advocating for the integration of co-inquiry action research groups within larger research projects rather than simply as advisory groups.

In the introductory chapter of Co-Producing Research: A Community Development Approach, Banks et al. contextualize the Imagine - Connecting Communities through Research project and explain what is meant by a community development approach to the co-production of research. The Imagine project brought together academics, artists, museum educators, youth workers, community workers, activists, local residents, teachers, young people, and policymakers to investigate the historical and social dynamics of civic engagement. It serves as the primary example used throughout the book to explore themes related to the co-production of research. Banks et al. outline the major points of contention when defining co-production of research and community development which include what is truly meant by “community” and differences between co-produced research and community development practice. The authors define a community development approach to co-production as several partners with diverse perspectives engaging collaboratively in research that develops communities, builds the capacity for action, and works for social change.

This chapter presents a dialogue between the authors: a researcher (David Bell), an artist (Steve Pool), a chief executive of a museum service (Kim Streets), and an arts educator (Natalie Walton) about how arts can be leveraged to imagine better futures and methods and trends within collaborative research. The first part of the dialogue focuses on the ways arts projects can and cannot empower communities to imagine better futures, with an emphasis on how class influences practices of re-imagining. The second part of the dialogue explores the historical, political, and economic dimensions of community-university partnerships. Central to this conversation is an interrogation of language and terminology. David Bell argues that the word “community” can often serve as a “dog whistle term,” invoking only certain kinds of communities. The chapter concludes by outlining several lessons gathered from the conversation: arts can be used to explore—and reproduce—social tensions, hierarchies, and contradiction; it is at the in-betweenness of conversations that collective knowledge can emerge; and building a more equitable society requires the forces of art, culture, and research, although these forces often get restricted.  

Cameron et al. discuss the dynamics of using a community of practice (CoP) framework as an analytical tool and an approach to collaborative research projects. Central to this exploration is that boundaries that exist within these collaborations, whether cultural boundaries or boundaries between academic and non-academic partners, are opportunities to deepen collective learning. Cameron et al. argue that key to the Imagine project’s CoP, which involved a variety of partners focused on the theme of resilience, was that the group’s goal was to positively leverage boundary tensions rather than eliminate them. The authors outline several key challenges for the CoP, which included differences across sources of knowledge, power differentials within knowledge production contexts, uncertainties around what the CoP’s outcomes could be, and differences in worldviews. The evolution of the group is then tracked through the stages of Wenger et al.’s maturity model: potential, coalescing, maturing, stewardship, and transformation. Cameron et al. conclude by exploring the critical practices that enabled the CoP to sustain their work over five years and create enduring transformations, which include implementing multiple modes of interaction, drawing the research partners into each other’s worlds, disrupting comfort zones, establishing spaces for reflexivity and acknowledgment of emotions, holding research retreats in non-academic or neutral spaces, employing a variety of recording techniques, distributing leadership, and the presence of boundary spanners who occupy different positions within the CoP.

Glass and Newman discuss the opportunities for collaborative community-based research (CCBR) to address the epistemic injustices embedded within knowledge production. They argue that Miranda Fricker’s emphasis on addressing epistemic injustice through individual virtue misses out on structural remedies and that Elizabeth Anderson’s institutional solutions are not robust enough. CCBR, while not an absolute remedy to injustices present in knowledge production, does provide a robust response to epistemic injustice by centring ethical-epistemic dynamics within its methodology. Through embedding epistemic agency for communities in knowledge production and positioning itself at the intersection of expert and non-specialists’ knowledge, CCBR is a powerful tool for addressing the testimonial and hermeneutical injustice that emerges when so-called lay knowledge is denigrated as illegitimate. Glass and Newman call for universities to offer greater support for CCBR but encourage caution given that universities have histories of posing threats to a variety of communities.

Heron and Reason offer a philosophical and theoretical critique of Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba’s paradigms of research which include positivism, postpositivism, critical theory, and constructivism. They argue that the model fails to account for the participatory worldview, which relies on subjective-objective reality where knowing is at the interface between the subject and what the subject encounters. The authors theorize that a participative worldview also involves an extended epistemology which includes four interrelated ways of knowing: experiential, presentational, propositional, and practical. A methodology based on a participative worldview, which Heron and Reason refer to as cooperative inquiry, is fully collaborative, balances action and reflection, and recognizes that researchers are also subjects and subjects are also researchers. This methodology rests on two principles: epistemic participation and political participation. Heron and Reason also argue that Lincoln and Guba’s outline of paradigms fails to address the axiological question: What sort of knowledge is intrinsically valuable in human life? According to a participative worldview, practical knowledge is intrinsically valuable. They assert that a participative worldview is a more satisfying and appropriate paradigm or “myth” for our time than the current western worldview.

Loggins, Nayve, and Plaxton-Moore argue that the academy has systematically excluded and denigrated community-based knowledge, thus contributing to epistemic injustice. Community engagement, on the other hand, is focused on creating space for community-situated knowledge and wisdom. Weaving together their own personal experiences with the intersections between epistemic (in)justice and community engagement, Loggins, Nayve, and Plaxton-Moore argue that genuine epistemic justice cannot occur when community wisdom is perceived as an “add-on.” For justice to occur, community-based knowledge must be embedded into the academy. Making space for community wisdom requires both small-scale action (self-reflection, deep listening, naming unjust dynamics within groups) and structural action (challenging concepts of authority, shifting locations of knowledge production).

London, Glass, Chang, Sabati, and Nojan explore the ethical, political, and material dimensions of knowledge production within community-engaged research, focusing on communities’ motivations and experiences. Through in-depth interviews with 15 community partners who received funding from the Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California, they identified several themes relating to the process of knowledge production. Community members often enter research partnerships because they want to translate what they know anecdotally into something “solid,” and to materially improve the lives of their communities. London et al. discuss the “double bind of legitimacy” faced by community partners: knowledge of community members is often deemed as unsophisticated and subjective, and university partnerships lend community knowledge legitimacy. However, depending on academic legitimacy undermines the community’s epistemic authority and can indirectly perpetuate their experiences with epistemic injustice. Community partners also found the time-intensive realities of academic publishing in direct tension with their pressing advocacy goals. London et al. argue that to address the compounding realities of material and epistemic injustice, those engaged in community partnerships must (1) understand that research is not inherently good and can perpetuate multiple forms of epistemic injustice; (2) attend to the complicated connections between ethics, politics, and the production of knowledge; and (3) be responsive to the short-term and long-term needs of community partners.

Martikke, Church, and Hart discuss their process researching co-inquiry projects as a community-university partnership (CUP) and several key implications for the field of research co-production. The CUP consisted of one community-based researcher (Martikke) and two academic researchers (Church and Hart). Through reflecting on their own experiences within a CUP and data gathered through interviewing researchers engaged in research co-production, the authors identified key lessons. CUPs are inherently unpredictable, and partners will likely have different expectations within the research process; acknowledging this unpredictability, seeing differences in expectations as part of the learning process, and working through subsequent challenges are necessary and strengthen partnerships in the long run. Research that emerges from CUPs is often better and different than research done solely by academics; however, CUP work is more time intensive. Those engaged in CUPs should be aware that many of the benefits of this kind of research are afforded to those individuals and organizations directly involved and that benefits to wider communities usually take longer to materialize. Martikke, Church, and Hart conclude that the sustainability of CUPs depends largely on individual leadership and commitment to these partnerships.

McAteer and Wood discuss the civic role of the university and democratization of knowledge production in context to a participatory action research (PAR) project in South Africa where academic researchers, local primary teachers, and teaching assistants collaborated to create a manual for students’ parents. McAteer and Wood introduce two models of the civic role of the university. One model emphasizes the university as the well-intentioned giver of knowledge and the other model emphasizes the university as a co-constructor of knowledge. McAteer and Wood argue that by seeking to enact the latter model in their PAR project, the academics and teaching assistants were able to co-produce knowledge and develop epistemic democracy. Through approaching the research with a facilitative model rather than a teaching model, the academic researchers were able to shift the structural dimension of the relationships that existed within the partnership largely impacted by the historical legacy of apartheid. McAteer and Wood conclude by calling attention to the ways that the institutional contexts of universities need to be transformed in order for the decolonization and democratization of knowledge to occur through engaged scholarship.

Paphitis discusses the potential for community-engaged research to mitigate epistemic injustice through drawing on two experiences with menstruation related projects in South Africa. In the first case, Paphitis’ research stemmed from a community-based organization's concern over the lack of school-aged girls' ability to afford menstrual products. After this concern was expressed, a meeting between university stakeholders was held and a needs assessment was administered across 20 schools in South Africa. Paphitis argues that regardless of the intentions in this project, the researchers perpetuated epistemic injustice. The research was not genuinely participatory and reduced the studies’ participants as sources of data rather than sources of knowledge. In the second case, researchers intentionally embedded community knowledge into every stage of the research process. For example, while creating an interactive workshop session around menstruation, researchers stressed that the social workers they were collaborating with were contributors of knowledge and relied on their expertise in the development of the workshop. Likewise, while developing a community theatre production on menstruation, researchers positioned the high school drama teacher and school learners as co-producers of knowledge. Paphitis argues that while the second case represents a project where community partners were more fully respected as epistemic agents, there was contention amongst her colleagues as to whether it was academically valuable research. The first case, on the other hand, was seen as more valid and interesting to Paphitis’ academic colleagues.

Turnhout, Metze, Wyborn, Klenk, and Louder argue that literature on co-production has been largely aspirational and consequently failed to explore how power dynamics shape processes and outcomes. Turnhout et al. argue that the underlying ethic of equality amongst participants in the co-production of knowledge is not self-evident. Literature has indicated that power relationships between participants are uneven from the start, meaning that “elite actors” (i.e., NGOs, governments, scientists) are able to shape the research scope and process. These uneven dynamics are even more pronounced between western and Global South partnerships. These power differentials are concerning because they reproduce existing inequities and impact the legitimacy of the research outcomes. The depoliticization of discourse within research co-production, which may look like elite actors ignoring local realities of power and politics, also reinforces existing inequalities. Turnhout et al. argue that the co-production literature that attempts to address these issues focuses on good processes but fails to address depoliticization. Some studies have explicitly addressed power within co-production projects through a focus on empowerment, however this is less common within studies that understand co-production as a means to “solve” scientific problems. Turnhout et al. argue that humility on the part of elitist actors is essential to negotiating roles and empowering traditionally marginalized voices. When it comes to the impacts of co-production products, there is little literature that indicates the broad societal transformations that are often expected actually occur. Turnhout et al. conclude by asserting there must be a greater recognition of co-production as a political practice that allows for pluralism and the contestations of knowledge claims.

Vargas, Whelan, Brimblecombe, and Allender discuss the differences between co-creation, co-design, and co-production and how to integrate co-production and co-design into public health initiatives. One of the core differences between the three concepts is the point at which diverse stakeholders are brought into the project. Co-creation engages stakeholders from the point of identifying and understanding complex problems through to developing and assessing solutions. Co-design engages stakeholders in developing a solution to an already identified and contextualized problem. Co-production engages stakeholders to implement an already identified solution and a prespecified problem. Vargas et al. argue that since co-design is an instrument for co-creation and co-production is a part of co-creation, co-design and co-production can be considered under the umbrella of co-creation. The authors continue by framing co-creation within participatory action research, emphasizing the important principles of participation, involvement, and engagement for co-creation. They conclude by outlining the six-step continual research cycle of co-creation (identify, analyze, define, design, realize, and evaluate) and highlighting the role co-production and co-design play in these steps.

Ward et al. conclude Co-Producing Research: A Community Development Approach by emphasizing the benefits and advantages of co-productive research communities. The authors briefly summarize some of the key challenges of co-production, but ultimately argue that while there may be no co-production project that is completely unproblematic, this should not stop individuals and organizations from engaging in this kind of research.

Yep and Mitchell explore how the field of ethnic studies has developed community-based learning through social justice and decolonization frameworks. Yep and Mitchell examine the ethnic studies approach to community-based learning through two case studies of university courses. The first revolved around the course “Grassroots Movements: Immigrant Women, Domestic Workers and Cultural Citizenship” taught at a California research university. The course focused on the domestic workers’ rights movement and emerged to support the California Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. Yep and Mitchell argue that by putting scholarly readings in dialogue with the praxis of activists, students were required to acknowledge domestic workers as analysts in their own right as well as agents. The second case study focused on the course “Globalization and Oceania: Tonga and Hawai’i” which revolved around students working with Tonga community members developing a community archive of cultural materials, like ngatu and koloa (gifts exchanged in recognition of important life events), and a voter awareness project around legislation that would benefit the Pacific Islander community. By privileging Tongan knowledge, the course avoided objectifying the community as a lab and rather reinforced the realities of their community partners. Mitchell and Yep argue that unlike other disciplinary approaches to community engagement which centres the student experience, an ethnic studies approach prioritizes the community’s experience. In shifting this focus and adopting a decolonizing approach, power differentials between universities and community partners are redefined.

Assessing the Practices of Public Scholarship is a collective for investigating and developing assessment practices for public scholarship and is part of the public scholarship consortium Imagining America. Its work includes developing what they call Democratically Engaged Assessment (DEA), an assessment framework founded upon the idea of democratic civic engagement. This framework seeks to turn assessment of public scholarship into a transformative process involving all stakeholders to analyze collaborative work following six core values: full participation, co-creation, generativity, rigor, practicability, and resilience.

Community-Based Research Canada is a nonprofit, membership-based organization that champions community-based research. It works toward the decolonization of knowledge and against systemic injustice through partnership building, community building, and knowledge mobilization. As of 2023, CBRCanada comprised 61 organizational members, 34 post-secondary institutions, 8 institutes, 19 community organizations, and 150 individual members contributing to community-based research. CBRCanada also organizes courses, workshops, and community of practice events to exchange best practices and network with other members. Their initiatives align with their goals of facilitating connections between individuals, communities and organizations, and championing community-based research.  

The Institute for Community Engaged Research, located within the University of British Columbia Okanagan, is an interdisciplinary research centre that facilitates community–university relationship building and socially engaged research. Institute members work in various disciplines with a shared commitment to diversity, equity, and social justice. While the members’ research is open-ended, there are five research clusters in this initiative with focused communities of practice: decolonization and Indigeneity, pedagogy, social inclusion, communication of community knowledge, and social, spatial, and economic justice. These activities have the goal of integrating teaching and research into community-engaged relationships, and creating research that promotes equality, equity, and justice at the local, national, and international level.  

The UCLA Community Archives Lab was founded with the intention of exploring the ways that independent, identity-based memory organizations document, shape, and provide access to the histories of minoritized communities, with a particular emphasis on understanding their affective, political, and artistic impact. Additionally, it engages in actions such as teaching and training a new generation of professional archivists in community-engaged and liberatory theories and practices, as well as supporting the autonomy of community archives through collaborative memory work.