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BEYOND VOICEAction Learning Case Studies
An improvised version of Action Research to engage
community in research
Udan Fernando, PhD
Center for Poverty Analysis (CEPA)
Sri Lanka
The Setting
The Setting
• Active Citizens’ Development Network (ACDN)
• ACDN = Three clusters of community level
groups from three Provinces : North, East and
Uva - agriculture, fisheries
• Various forms of engagement with Local
Government Authorities: collaboration,
resistance, combination
What ACDN wanted know research
questions
What ACDN wanted know : research
questions
• What have we done? Take stock of various interventions
(change processes)
• How have we done? Patterns of action Reconstruct
strategies (change strategies, abstraction)
• What worked (and did not work) and why ?
Failures/successes: context, conditions, factors (discern
dynamics of change, analysis)
• How to do things better? Learning Improved Practice
The Process
The Process
• Community functionaries and CEPA
collaboratively formulate the research questions
and methodology
• Community carries out the research : data
gathering, processing, analysis and
interpretation
• CEPA facilitates, (research) quality assures, and
documents the research process
The steps
The steps• Collaboratively finalize purpose, research questions and
design
• Organize existing data: records from community group,
key person interviews (KPIs), Focus Group Discussions
(FGDs) with representatives of the community
• Story Telling Workshop – a multi-stakeholder exercise to
construct the narrative for preliminary analysis and
interpretation [a variety of tools used]
• Triangulation and validation: secondary data, extra KPIs
and FGDs
So what?
the value addition
Knowledge for change – enabling
communities to address/solve problems
that matter them
Demystifying knowledge and
research
Democratizing knowledge
Blurring the divide between the
‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’
Revisiting (new) orthodoxies of
research
So what? the value addition
• Knowledge for change – enabling communities
to address/solve problems that matter them
• Demystifying knowledge and research
• Democratizing knowledge
• Blurring the divide between the ‘researcher’ and
the ‘researched’
• Revisiting (new) orthodoxies of research
