Reflections on using creative methods and embedded research practices to empower community-based social initiatives to explicate the value of their work methods

Description

During the collaborative research project “Licht op Buurtmoeders
MoedersKracht” researchers worked alongside community-based social initiative
Buurtmoeders Moederskracht to explore ways to capture, explicate, and strengthen the
added value of the initiative’s work method. The initiative encountered difficulties in
understanding and relaying the (implicit) effects of their methods to receive support
from funding bodies. The community’s need for anonymity and discretion, born from
distrust for official institutions, hindered the demonstration of details of the initiative’s
work methods necessary to understand its purpose and effects.

To support the initiative’s effort in explicating their added value whilst honouring the
demands of the community, this research adopted an approach in which these
demands led the research process and informed its methodology. Using creative
methods like storytelling/listening combined with embedded research practices to build
trust, the research invited the emergence and explication of knowledge in ways that
primarily served the initiative and the community.

Period	12 Apr 2024
Event title	Challenges and Opportunities in Participatory Research Methods
Event type	Conference
Location	lund, SwedenShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International