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

Thank You

www.cepa.lk