Geoforum 43 (2012) 585–594

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Geoforum

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(Re-)negotiating access: The politics of researching skills and knowledgefor ‘sustainable communities’

Julie Newton a,⇑, Alex Franklin b, Jennie Middleton c, Terry Marsden b

a The ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS), Cardiff University, 55 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdomb Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University, 51 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdomc School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 23 September 2010Received in revised form 2 December 2011Available online 10 January 2012

Keywords:Sustainable communitiesResearch methodsReflexivityResearch accessResearch impact

0016-7185/$ - see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.12.003

⇑ Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: NewtonJ2@cardiff.ac.uk (J. Newt

(A. Franklin), j.middleton@kingston.ac.uk (J. Middleto(T. Marsden).

a b s t r a c t

The last decade has witnessed a surge of interest in ‘sustainable communities’ within the UK. This hasstimulated a plethora of research aimed at acquiring a better understanding of what ‘sustainable commu-nities’ might look like and how they can be achieved. However, this has not been accompanied by areflection and interrogation of the actual processes, challenges and politics of doing ‘sustainable commu-nities’ research. This paper addresses this gap by highlighting the importance of paying attention to theon-going process of negotiating access when carrying out sustainability research at the community level.We draw on a recent study of skills and knowledge for ‘sustainable communities’ in Stroud Gloucester-shire, UK, to illustrate the importance of sensitivity to social relationships throughout and beyond theresearch trajectory within sustainability research. Our experience raises important questions about thepolitics of research practices when doing sustainability research ‘with’ communities and the challengesassociated with participatory approaches as a means to demonstrate research impact. We argue thatin developing a fuller understanding of why and how different types of community level initiativescan contribute to the ‘sustainable communities’ agenda, greater consideration needs to be given tohow these community practices can be better supported through the process of doing academic research.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

‘Sustainable communities’ are framed within UK policy as‘‘places where people want to live and work, now and in the future.They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, aresensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high qualityof life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run,and offer quality of opportunity and good services for all’’ (ODPM,2005). Despite the potential of academic research for informingand impacting upon ‘sustainable communities’ policy, the term‘sustainable communities’ itself remains contested. Central hereis the problematic of working with a fixed definition as if it werean end point or replicable model. Also contentious is the extentto which the current policy interest in ‘sustainable communities’extends beyond socio-political concerns of urban regeneration,community safety and affordable housing supply. Certainly, far lessattention is given within policy to the ecological dimensions of sus-tainability and the need for more sustainable forms of resourceproduction and consumption (Seyfang, 2009). Consequently,

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on), Franklina1@cardiff.ac.ukn), MarsdenTK@cardiff.ac.uk

although there is an expansive range of research that engages withvarious dimensions of community level sustainability practices,seldom is it collectively referred to as ‘sustainable communities’research.

The fact that ‘sustainable communities’ remains first and fore-most a policy term that cannot straightforwardly be translated intoa research context is not unexpected. However, in preparing forand undertaking related empirical studies that involve this typeof community based research, it is important that this issue isclearly acknowledged; particularly where the research is policydriven as it has been in the context of ‘sustainable communities’within the UK. An omission to do so is all too often accompaniedby insufficient engagement with, or subsequent reflection of, thepotential barriers that have to be addressed and overcome duringthe actual process of doing community level based research andacknowledging that ‘community’ itself is a contested term. Signif-icantly, not only can this be problematic for the ‘researcher’, butalso for the ‘researched’. Whilst the challenges and ethical dilem-mas of ‘doing research’ at the community level are well rehearsedwithin other disciplines and subfields (feminist geography, devel-opment studies and development geography), they have thus farbeen largely neglected in explorations of community level sustain-ability practices (Rose, 1997; Katz, 1994; Nast, 1994; Valentine,2002; Kobayashi, 2001; Madge, 1994; Madge et al., 1997; Ley

586 J. Newton et al. / Geoforum 43 (2012) 585–594

and Mountz, 2001; Mohan, 1999; Gibson-Graham, 2008). With therapidly growing number of journal papers and books including theterm ‘sustainable communities’1 in their titles, there is a morepressing need to engage with the politics of research practice incommunities where community level sustainability initiatives aretaking place. For example, a recent special issue on ‘sustainable com-munities’ in Local Economy 23:3 (2008) made no reference to re-search methods. This on-going lack of engagement with thepolitics of research practice within the context of ‘sustainable com-munities’ policy research has significant repercussions when itcomes to informing either community practice or government policy(Jupp, 2007, 2008). The increasing emphasis now being placed on re-search impact by UK Research Councils (RCUK) as well as the Re-search Excellence Framework (REF) as distinct from researchoutput, makes this omission all the more significant.

This paper draws directly on the reflections of a team of fourresearchers who have recently completed an Economic and SocialResearch Council (ESRC)/Academy for Sustainable Communities(ASC)2 funded research project which responded to current policyinterest in skills and knowledge for ’sustainable communities’.Loosely informed by a case study methodology (Yin, 2003), the pro-ject involved distinct phases of desk-based research ‘on’ ‘sustainablecommunities’, and field based research ‘in’ a ‘sustainable commu-nity’. It is the actual experience of undertaking the fieldwork and sub-sequent process of reflecting on this experience and the ethicaldilemmas it raises, which we focus upon here. Thus, the aim is notto prioritise discussion of the research findings, but rather, ‘‘the pro-cess and experience of ‘finding’’’ (Neal and Walters, 2006, p. 178). Wemake the case that a reflection upon the process of undertaking re-search deserves attention in its own right (Neal and Walters, 2006;Blake, 2007; Bailey et al., 2009). Not least because in developing a ful-ler understanding of why and how different types of community levelsustainability initiatives can contribute to the ‘sustainable communi-ties’ agenda, greater consideration also needs to be given to howthese practices can better be supported through the process of doingacademic research. That is, exploring the inter-relationship betweenresearch processes and research findings in the context of explicitlyengaging with the broader societal impact of academic research.

The ESRC defines research impact as the ‘‘demonstrable contri-bution that excellent research makes to society and the economy.It embraces all the extremely diverse ways in which research-re-lated knowledge and skills benefit individuals, organisations andnations’’.3 This has resulted in the requirement for funding proposalsto RCUK to include an impact summary and plan. There is an increas-ing interest in involving communities collaboratively in the actualpreparation of research bids (see for example ‘Connected Communi-ties’4: a cross-disciplinary, cross-Research Council programme andthe recent Energies and Communities Collaborative Venture betweenthe ESRC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council(EPSRC)). There is also an opportunity to apply for ‘Follow-on funding’to undertake additional knowledge transfer and impact generationactivities. Whilst the emphasis on engagement strategies with thecommunities under investigation is promising, it raises important is-sues about how communities will then be included and engaged; par-ticularly in a way that recognises the plurality within communities

1 See for example the special issue of Local Economy (23:3) and special issue ofLocal Environment (16:8) which were both focused on ‘sustainable communities’.

2 The Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) was incorporated within theHomes and Communities Agency (HCA) in December 2008. It has now been renamedas the HCA Academy and is responsible for the skills arm of the Government’s housingand regeneration agency.

3 http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/tools-and-resources/impact-tool-kit/what-how-and-why/what-is-research-impact.aspx [last accessed 29 December,2011].

4 http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/connectedcommunities.aspx[last accessed 13 August, 2011].

and ensures communities are not involved in a tokenistic manner orexploited for instrumentalist target driven research. This is particu-larly relevant in the context of ‘sustainable communities’ research be-cause of a wider critique of the ‘sustainable communities’ agenda as aneo-liberal policy instrument designed to justify the rolling back ofstate welfare as a means of promoting community self-sufficiency(Raco, 2005). Whilst we agree this critique is well founded, we believethat the ‘sustainable communities’ agenda also offers an opportunityto raise awareness amongst policy makers about the importance ofcommunity level sustainability initiatives. However, as we argue inthis paper, any research aimed at gaining an understanding of whata ‘sustainable community’ looks like needs to be sensitive to the pol-itics of research practice at the community level. Throughout the pa-per we use the terms ‘community level’ and ‘community’ withreference to the community groups who participated in the research.We also recognise multiple communities with an emphasis on ‘com-munities’ (as opposed to ‘community’) throughout our discussion.

The impact agenda has caused a mixed response within UK aca-demia; there is growing concern that the weighting given to ‘im-pact’ may place restrictions on the nature of research bywidening the gap between theory and practice and reduce the rig-our of scientific enquiry. It has also caused much concern abouthow ‘impact’ is defined and how the growing ‘marketisation ofknowledge’ may lead towards a more instrumentalist specific tar-get driven research (Pain et al., 2011). Whilst these tensions arewell recognised in the context of community based research moregenerally; particularly in relation to plurality of communit(ies) andthe adoption of participatory methods to engage communit(ies)within research, we argue that they have not been sufficiently ad-dressed in community level sustainability research under the ban-ner of ‘sustainable communities’.

In this paper we further explore the potential for research im-pact and community engagement to be mutually reinforcing, aswell as its implications for the process of ‘doing’ community levelsustainability research. We do so by focusing on our own experi-ence of (re-)negotiating access and how this affected the researchprocess. Taking as our starting point the argument that access isnot a discreet one-off event (Pitts and Miller-Day, 2007), we dis-cuss the process of negotiating access as an activity that has tobe constantly attended to, particularly when engaging with sus-tainability community activists; a process that needs to be under-stood in the context of initiating, managing and maintaining socialrelationships. In particular, we highlight the ethical dilemmas ofnegotiating multiple and shifting researcher identities, which weargue are not sufficiently addressed within more formal ethical re-view processes. We begin with a brief introduction to current pol-icy and academic approaches to the promotion of skills andknowledge for ‘sustainable communities’ and how this informedour research. Then, drawing directly on illustrations from field re-search, the main body of the paper focuses on the actual process of(re-) negotiating access at different stages of the research trajec-tory. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of our experi-ence for research ‘on’, ‘in’ and ‘with’ communities.

2. Skills and knowledge for ‘sustainable communities’

Within the UK, much of the interest in ‘sustainable communi-ties’ originated from the Sustainable Communities Plan (ODPM,2003) which was introduced as a key instrument of New Labour’sagenda to tackle regional deprivation and promote the regenera-tion of urban areas informed by principles of sustainable develop-ment (Raco, 2005). Although its original focus was grounded instimulating a sustainable housing market, it made headway inproviding the first attempt to define a ‘sustainable community’and focusing attention on the role of skills and knowledge in sus-tainability (Newton et al., 2008). It also sought to reinvigorate the

5 Stroud was amongst the first communities within the UK to embark on Local

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relationships between the state and community by making a callfor the ‘‘effective engagement by local people, groups and busi-nesses, especially in the planning, design and long-term steward-ship of their communities as an active voluntary and communitysector’’ (ODPM, 2003). For some, there was concern that the ‘sus-tainable communities’ agenda would be used to not only justifycommunities delivering the State’s agenda but also co-opt the al-ready existing innovative and community led initiatives of environ-mental and community activists working on promoting sustainableliving within the mainstream government agenda (Hope and Alex-ander, 2008; Raco, 2005; Jupp, 2008; Seyfang, 2009).

On another level, its dominant planning and engineering led fo-cus on how best to design and construct a ‘sustainable community’was heavily ‘outcome focused’ and gave little attention towardsaddressing the equally challenging processes and social dimen-sions of building a ‘sustainable community’ (Turok and Taylor,2006; Newton et al., 2008). For example, how will people behavewithin these spaces; to what extent can residents of a ‘sustainablecommunity’ be encouraged to incorporate sustainable practicesand technologies into their everyday lives? And more specifically,from a skills and knowledge perspective: what types of skills andknowledge are required for individuals to proactively change theirown behaviour; how are these skills and knowledge acquired andapplied? It was by engaging with these types of questions that theresearch on which this paper is based sought to contribute to exist-ing ‘sustainable communities’ skills and knowledge policy debates.

At the time of our research, the debate on skills and knowledgefor building ‘sustainable communities’ was dominated by a focuson professional skills and top-down planning. Little recognitionwas given to the skills and knowledge embedded within communi-ties (Newton, 2009). As such, our research addressed this gap andengaged with these issues by drawing upon a ‘situated learning’ ap-proach (Lave and Wenger, 1991) As we argue elsewhere (Franklinet al., 2011a)) a geographical sensitivity to space and place is essen-tial in highlighting the interconnected and relational nature of thelearning process with regards to sustainability skills and knowl-edge. From a methodological perspective, however, attempts atengaging with this type of ‘situated learning’ can be problematic,particularly because they are heavily reliant on a high level of accessto the social settings in which the research participants are situated.

An approach that is based on asking direct questions about therole of skills and knowledge for sustainability is unlikely to ade-quately engage with how skills are situated in people’s everydaylives. As Thrift (1985) explains, there are types of knowledge thatare ‘unarticulated’ and where having to directly ask questionsabout it is to miss the point. Such knowledge can be described as‘practical knowledge’, that is ‘‘the informal type of knowledge thatis learnt from the experience of watching and doing in highly par-ticular contexts in direct mutual interaction’’ (1985, p. 373). Itscharacteristics include being part of a ‘‘continuous and repetitiveflow of conduct . . .oriented towards doing’, and ‘‘local. . . producedand reproduced in mutual interaction that relies on presence ofother human beings on a direct, face-to-face basis’’ (p. 373). Engag-ing with what can be considered the ‘less visible’ aspects of skillsand learning requires a research approach that involves the re-searcher immersing themselves within the community underinvestigation. That is, spending an extended period of time makingobservations in, rather than simply conducting research on, com-munities. For this to be possible, however, a high level of accessmust be sought and maintained.

Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) and has a reputation for a strong local foodmovement. More recently, it launched its own currency and has an active TransitionTowns group.

6 The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for Business Relation-ships Accountability Sustainability & Society (BRASS).

7 For more information on these case studies, see http://www.brass.cf.ac.uk/community/.

3. Research context

The research experiences on which this paper draws, took placewithin the market town of Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, in 2008.

Stroud was selected because of a number of typical and a-typicalfeatures. It is best described as a semi-rural, small industrial townwith a population of approximately 12,000. With a strong indus-trial and manufacturing heritage in textiles and cloth, it displayssocio-economic features characteristic of other ‘typical’ Englishsemi-rural communities. Yet, Stroud is also considered ‘atypical’due to its reputation for being at the forefront green and sustain-able living in England5; it is well known for its ‘bohemian vibe’, his-tory of ‘alternative’ politics and strong Green Party presence.

Prior to undertaking empirical research in Stroud, the precedingstage of the research project involved desk-based secondary dataanalysis ‘on’ sustainable communities. This drew on existing casestudies undertaken by BRASS6 researchers across four sustainabilityproduction and consumption sectors (food, energy, transport andhome) and the cross cutting theme of community engagement.Although useful for providing a general overview and highlightingthe potential importance of how skills come together in place, thismethod of secondary data collection from a distance failed to eluci-date how this works in practice and what it is about ‘place’ that issignificant (Newton, 2009; Franklin et al., 2011a). The field research,undertaken primarily by Newton in Stroud was crucial for address-ing this gap.

The case studies under investigation included: Stroud Commu-nity Supported Agriculture, Stroud Community Car Club, SpringhillCo-housing and Gloucestershire Land for People.7 Drawing on amixed-method approach within a single geographical location, theresearch team were able to explore both the individual sustainabilityinitiatives and the social spaces in which the initiatives were located.Following an initial desk based scoping study of Stroud local sustain-ability initiatives, with ethics approval gained in accordance withstandard University procedures, key stakeholders involved in theseprojects were identified using a snowballing strategy. A total of 16semi-structured individual in-depth interviews were subsequentlyconducted. This overlapped with periods of participant observationthroughout the fieldwork including: participation in shared mealsand the construction of a hand crafted bread-making oven at theSpringhill co-housing site; sitting informally on meetings of localcommunity groups; working on the land with members of a commu-nity supported agricultural scheme and local community allotment;and attending a range of community events and talks focused on var-ious aspects of community sustainability. Linked to this the lead re-searcher (Newton) was able to spend periods of time living in Stroudand attending a range of different informal and formal social gather-ings in Stroud. However, getting to this point in the research was byno means a seamless process of exploration. From the beginning ofthe fieldwork the research team were faced with a number of diffi-culties in negotiating access. These manifested as a series of inter-re-lated points of resistance which can be summarised as resistancetowards the research team due to an alignment with the University;the choice of site location; the research topic (i.e. focus on skills andknowledge) and the way the research was conducted.

4. Negotiating access: points of resistance

The challenges of negotiating access are particularly pro-nounced in the face of short term funding conditions that charac-terise many research projects such as the one being explored in

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this paper. As Cloke (2002, p. 591) notes, ‘‘the unwillingness to pro-mote and fund long-term, longitudinal research has created theconditions for ‘flip’ ethnographies by which researchers too oftenbreeze in and out of research situations, with insufficient commit-ment to the people and issues concerned’’. The relatively short per-iod of time (approximately three months) available for conductingour fieldwork8 meant that the team had to prioritise identifying par-ticipants who were directly involved as leaders of local sustainabilityinitiatives. However, it soon became apparent that the initial enqui-ries were being received by the potential participants as comingfrom a group of outsiders who, although unlikely to make any prac-tical contribution to sustainability practice in Stroud, would benefitfrom the research themselves.

Clark (2008) notes how the financial costs of engagement arerarely considered by major funding bodies such as the ESRC; yetcan contribute towards the reluctance of some participants’involvement (Thompson, 1996). Further, the ‘‘costs of engagementare often much more nebulous than might first be assumed andcan be difficult to calculate and compensate for’’ (Clark, 2008, p.964). The initial reluctance from research participants in Stroudto give up their time and energy for a research interview was thencompounded by a disinterest, and in some cases even a disagree-ment, over the priority that was being given within the researchto sustainability skills and knowledge. Partly these two points ofresistance can be explained by taking into account the notion of‘research fatigue’. Clark (2008) points out how research fatigue isrelated to perceptions that there is a lack of change following re-search engagement. The interview extract below is illustrative ofa view held by a number of participants that there was alreadyan excess of interest in Stroud because of its reputation as a pio-neer of local sustainability:

‘‘My feeling is therefore that there maybe a bit of ‘‘overkill’’ here inthe town and it would be more productive to go to somewhere thatthe concept of carbon footprints, sustainability ‘et al’ are not cen-tral to their current thinking!’’ (Marcus9)

At the same time, the lack of priority given to skills and knowl-edge by a number of participants proved particularly insightful forus. For many of the participants, the development of basic skillsand knowledge necessary for community development was some-thing that each had successfully engaged with, and experienced, ina range of different contexts pursuing a range of different activities.As such, the acquirement of new skills and knowledge was formany, not currently a priority. Instead, Newton was repeatedlytold throughout the research that it was not skills and knowledgeper se that had acted as a barrier to sustainable development, butrather a lack of volunteers, money, and time:

‘‘The. . .main problem is not an absence of skills, or not knowingwhich skills are absent, but absence of funding for what really mat-ters and economic barriers to creating local sustainable livelihoods’’(Susan)

We also experienced more general resistance because of our po-sition as University academics undertaking government funded re-search under the banner of ‘sustainable communities’. This createdfriction because of the view that as researchers we would inevita-bly end up ‘freeloading’ off the pioneering initiatives taking placein Stroud:

‘‘I have a concern about a system where universities and govern-ment freeload on pioneering action research work and wonder ifyou have constructive ways around this’’ (Lionel)

8 The work schedule of this research was constrained by the one year duration ofthe ESRC standard small grant (which at the time of the research was capped at£100,000 Full Economic Cost).

9 All respondents have been anonymised.

This opinion was also linked to an associated concern with howUniversities had easier access to public funding. Furthermore itwas symptomatic of a wider perception that Universities and any-one affiliated to Government promoted the ‘co-optation’ of localsustainable initiatives. As Jupp (2007, p. 2833) notes, this reflectsa broader concern about how community groups can be used asa ‘‘resource to bring about change in line with the government’sagenda’’ and ignores the interests of local stakeholders withinthe communities. This issue has been raised as a particular concernwithin the ‘sustainable communities’ policy agenda in the UK(Raco, 2005, 2007; Cochrane, 2003; Hope and Alexander, 2008)and further reinforces the importance of exploring how social rela-tionships are intrinsic to the research process throughout itstrajectory.

The social relationship between the researcher and the re-searched was particularly influential during fieldwork in Stroud.An example of this can be found in the following extract where, to-wards the end of the fieldwork phase, Pat reflects upon her experi-ence of ‘being researched’:

‘‘So that’s why the feeling of the way your research had been con-structed was sort of slightly predicated on the idea that you couldcome along and learn from us, transferable models, by looking atthe skills we used to construct these models. It is because we feltthat this was your starting point that you had a jolly tough old timewhen you came along’’ (Pat)

Pat seeks to explain her initial resistance based on an assump-tion about extractive research where researchers ‘‘come along andlearn from us’’ and then use the information to ‘‘construct models’’and apply them elsewhere with little direct benefit to the commu-nity involved. This was a consistent theme throughout many of ourinterviews. At one level, this raises concerns about the aspatial andoutput driven model based approach that has characterised muchof the current ‘sustainable communities’ skills agenda (see ODPM,2003). This leaves little room for an understanding of the processesof how skills and knowledge are shaped at the community level bythe social relations that exist between people and are affected byplace (Franklin et al., 2011a; Newton, 2009). It also highlights adeeper dissatisfaction with the unequal research/researcher rela-tionship that underpins many of the points of resistance high-lighted here.

The extractive nature of traditional research methods and theethical issues this raises are increasingly being made visible byadvocates of participatory research approaches (see Kemmis andMcTaggart, 2005; Pain and Francis, 2003; Pain and Kindon, 2007;Kindon et al., 2007a; Silver, 2008; Burns, 2007). The rise of partic-ipatory action research (PAR) is symptomatic of a wider effort toredress the power imbalance between ‘researcher’ and ‘researched’and ‘action’ and ‘research’ (Kesby et al., 2007). PAR describes aspectrum of participatory approaches to action-oriented researchthat involves researchers and research participants ‘exploring’ anissue together and changing it for the better (Kindon et al.,2007b; Wadsworth, 1998). Increasingly, researchers focusing onsustainability initiatives are being advised by civil society groups(for example, see Transition Towns10 Network website (TTN,2010)) to engage in participatory approaches as a way of ‘‘givingback’’.

However, there are also dangers of using PAR approachesuncritically or in a tokenistic manner (Cooke and Kothari, 2001;Pain et al., 2011). This is particularly relevant in light of the recentemphasis on ‘impact’ by RCUK and the revised REF, where there isa risk that such methodologies may be misappropriated as

10 The Transition Towns can be described as a grassroots communities movementfocused on increasing community resilience by addressing the twin challenges ofclimate change and grassroots oil.

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researchers face increasing pressure to demonstrate research im-pact. Careful consideration also has to be given to the particularcontexts in which PAR approaches may be deemed more or lesssuitable as a research approach. Indeed, the Transition Towns Net-work recognises that PAR may ‘‘not be appropriate in all cases’’ andthat there may be other ways of reciprocating (TTN, 2010). In thecase of the Stroud research, participatory approaches were deemedinappropriate for a number of reasons. Firstly, due to practical is-sues associated with the restrictions of working within a limited(1 year) time frame with only a 3-month period in which to under-take new empirical field research. Secondly, the nature of the re-search call meant that the focus of the project and core researchquestions had already been established prior to the research takingplace. This runs contrary to the PAR ethos that often begins withthe identification of a research focus in collaboration with commu-nity members who are seeking to change a situation for the better(Kindon et al., 2007a; Burns, 2007). And thirdly, the resistance weinitially faced in attempting to gain access suggested that sufficienttime had to be invested in building trust and rapport before wewere able to reach the point at which the potential for collabora-tive research endeavours could be explored. It is to these issuesof building trust and rapport to which attention now turns.

11 For a similar discussion of this fluctuation see the work of feminist geographerson ‘betweeness’ (Nast, 1994; England, 1994).

5. Overcoming resistance in the researcher/researchedrelationship

For us, each of the points of resistance discussed thus far chal-lenged different aspects of the research process, yet were crucialin gaining a greater understanding of individuals and the socialrelationships between those individuals actively pursuing local sus-tainability in Stroud. They proved insightful in providing early indi-cations of the further work required by Newton to improve levels ofaccess whilst maintaining positive researcher/researched relation-ships. Although these points of resistance were eventually over-come, this was not the result of a linear process. Rather, itrequired continuous attention to the building and maintaining ofrelationships, with regular reinvestments of time and effort. AsCrow and Pope (2008, p. 813) note, ‘‘research relationships arenot automatic; they have to be created and sustained’’. From thisperspective it is useful to view field research as being a social activ-ity in which establishing good rapport matters and needs to be at-tended to throughout the research (Hammond, 1964; Pitts andMiller-Day, 2007; Lecompte and Schensul, 1999). These are impor-tant issues to be considered in terms of research impact. For as Painet al. (2011, p. 186) note, ‘‘impact can occur throughout the researchprocesses’’. That is, the actual process of research generates impactin itself (ibid). Whilst they make this case in the context of ‘collab-orative research’ we maintain that this is relevant in any form of re-search relationship. However, it is not without its challenges andpresents a number of ethical dilemmas that are not always suffi-ciently accounted for through the institutional mechanisms of for-mal university ethic committees and the Research EthicsFramework advocated by the ESRC. As we will illustrate, a consider-able amount of transparency and reflexivity is required.

The reflexive turn within the social sciences, particularlythrough the work of feminists, has drawn attention to knowledgeas being situated, partial and influenced by the subjectivity ofthe researcher (Haraway, 1988; Probyn, 1993, 1996; Rose, 1997).However, a noticeable lack of reflexivity is said to remain ‘‘regard-ing the implications of the research relationship being a social rela-tionship’’ (Crow and Pope, 2008, p. 814). Crow and Pope (2008)draw on Bourdieu et al. (1999) to explain how this refers to thefailure of much of the methods literature to ‘‘capture the realitiesof how research investigations are practiced’’ in terms of the intri-cacies of the complex researcher/researched relationship which is

an ongoing process of negotiation. These include the challengesof negotiating access and building up trust, and the tensions andethical dilemmas this creates within the researcher/researchedrelationship (Bourdieu et al., 1999, p. 608; Pitts and Miller-Day,2007). The tensions within the research/researched relationshiphave been the subject of much debate within the social sciences.However, with the exception of anthropologists carrying out in-depth ethnographies (see for example Marcus, 1999; Springwoodand King, 2001; Ellis, 1995, 2007), rarely do we hear about the tra-jectories of research relationships from the initial point of estab-lishing rapport and how this may then fluctuate throughout theresearch process (Pitts and Miller-Day, 2007). This is a significantomission in the context of the politics of research practice on ‘sus-tainable communities’ because it is this attention to research rela-tionships that is crucial for understanding the ‘processes’ involvedin the creation and maintenance of ‘sustainable communities’ ini-tiatives at the community level.

From our experience, overcoming the initial resistance in Stroudwas dependent upon how Newton negotiated social relationshipsin the field. To begin with Newton was aware of how she was posi-tioned as an ‘outsider’. Although this posed some difficulties, herposition as ‘outsider’ (albeit one with access) also served as anadvantage since she became privy to a certain amount of informa-tion that she may not have got as an ‘insider’. This is recognised byValentine (2002, p. 123) who notes that ‘‘a sense of connectednessor sameness does not always prompt the disclosure of thoughtsand feelings between the researcher and the interviewee’’. Simi-larly, Mohammad (2001, p. 109) notes that being an insider canhave the ‘‘effect of making the researcher appear too close for com-fort, making people wary of sharing information’’; whilst Neal andWalters (2006, p. 181) conclude that sometimes: ‘‘to stay some-what or partially strange and outside may then be beneficial tothe process of finding out’’. By suggesting that being an ‘outsider’or an ‘objective stranger’ does not rely on passivity or detachment,they move on to acknowledge that this position is neither discretenor fixed. Rather, it is a fluctuating position ‘‘composed of distanceand nearness, indifference and involvement’’ (Ritzer, 2002, p. 403).For as Neal and Walters (2006) concede, this is testament to the so-cial nature of the research relationship – nearness and remotenessare inevitable elements of all forms of social relations.11

From early on in the research Newton made a conscious effortto be highly visible in Stroud to build trust and rapport boththrough familiarity, and demonstrate an overt commitment tothe research in light of the negative view of the policy driven ‘sus-tainable communities’ agenda. Key to this was being found in arange of local spaces frequented by key local actors such as the lo-cal café and shopping streets. In this sense her actions and move-ments were in the long run as important as her words. Althoughrecorded interviews formed an essential part of the research itwas the direct engagement with various sustainability initiatives,and spending significant periods of time ‘hanging out’ in Stroudwith residents, that proved essential; not only to our understand-ing of how skills and learning for sustainability are situated inplace, but also the key actors and communities of interest involved(Franklin et al., 2011a). At the same time, it was the conversationsthat took place outside the formal recorded interviews and partic-ipant observation that were of most value. For her part, a furtherkey constituent of Newton’s awareness of her own positionality in-volved a degree of openness in her own thoughts, sharing herexperience and reflections with participants when relevant. AsCrozier (2003) notes, remaining aloof or ‘distant’ in an effort to as-sert ‘objectivity’ can actually serve to reinforce the hierarchical

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relationship between researcher and researched – somethingwhich was identified as a point of resistance earlier in the researchprocess. However, this was not without its ethical dilemmas as weillustrate below.

Pitts and Miller-Day (2007) draw on Baxter and Bullis (1986)term ‘turning point’ to describe the moments within the researchwhere there is a noticeable shift in the researcher/researched rela-tionship. One such turning point came about in Stroud after spend-ing a day volunteering on the community supported agriculturescheme. Newton was invited back by a volunteer to the co-housingscheme where residents were building a bread-making oven. Thiswas an important breakthrough for the research in terms of build-ing trust and rapport. The conversations that took place during theoven construction were invaluable in gaining an understanding ofStroud as a place, the sort of people it attracted, and the social rela-tionships between them and the relevance of this for understand-ing the role of skills and knowledge for sustainability (Franklinet al., 2011a). However, this process was far from unproblematic.

Building relationships of trust and rapport is not immediate. Itrequires substantial investment of the researcher’s own time, muchof which takes place out of office hours. There are also considerableethical implications of building closer relationships with the partic-ipants. As recognised by Powdermaker (1966), participants arelikely to encourage social relations and want to know informationabout the researcher. Hall (2009, p. 269) recognises that in practiceit is difficult to deny participants this because of ‘‘one’s ethical posi-tion as friend and a researcher’’. For Newton, the multiple ways inwhich she was positioned by participants and the identities sheperformed of both researcher and friend were of particular signifi-cance. These presented new tensions. Fine’s (1994) metaphor of‘working the hyphen’ in ‘Self-Other’ is useful for exploring Newton’sexperience. Fine (1994, p. 135) argues that it is important that weexplore or ‘‘probe how we (as researchers) are in relation withthe contexts in which we study and with our informants, under-standing that we are all multiple in those relations’’. She recognisesthat it is the ‘‘relations between’’ which ‘‘gets us better data’’. Butwhat of the ethical implications of these ‘friendships’ that can bere-interpreted as exploitative because they enhance/facilitate theprocess of accessing data and how do formalised institutional eth-ical mechanisms account for this?

Whilst there is some recognition within the ESRC Research Eth-ics Framework (2010, p. 29) that participatory research is ‘‘anongoing and open-ended process’’; there is little guidance onhow to deal with fluctuating identities of ‘researcher’ and ‘friend’that are an inherent aspect of the ‘ethnographic’ research process.This is also the case with more formalised and institutionalisedstructures of University research committees whose top down fo-cus on fixed codes, rules and guidelines on recruitment, consent,what activities can or cannot be undertaken rarely account for thistype of dilemma and how these should be negotiated along the re-search trajectory (Elwood, 2007; Blake, 2007; Askins, 2007; Cahillet al., 2007). Nor do they stipulate how this is managed once theresearch itself comes towards an end (Hall, 2009). Indeed, a specialissue of ACME (2007) recognises that whilst the ‘‘institutionalisa-tion of a commitment to ethical research practice and to protectingresearch participants from harm is tremendously important’’ (El-wood, 2007, p. 332), such ‘institutional ethics’ is incomplete andproblematic because they ignore how the ethical dilemma of shift-ing research identities is ‘‘specific to the relationships and interac-tions of a particular research relationship’’. Rather, they advocatean approach grounded in ‘participatory ethics’ that promotesshared dialogue amongst the researcher and research participants.

Although Newton was always upfront about the nature of theresearch with research participants, there were moments whereher presence at certain events was far from straightforward. Inthe case of a birthday party she was invited to, for example, she

made a conscious effort to emphasise, that for that evening shewas ‘‘not wearing [her] research hat’’. Rather, she was there as a‘friend’ – complete with birthday present. To reinforce this, though,she also had to take care to avoid conversations that could be mis-construed as being of use to the research. Equally, she was con-scious throughout the party that anything told to her was inconfidence and could not be used for research purposes. Inevitably,the positioning and performance of these identities was complex,multiple and constantly shifting. She found herself in a positionthat was somewhere between ‘friend’ and ‘researcher’ which wasboth useful and challenging. For although attending as a ‘friend’,being at the party and observing the relationships between the dif-ferent participants was inevitably insightful in the context of thebroader research project. In the case of this research, then, ‘work-ing the hyphen’, involved the research team explicitly acknowledg-ing and making allowance for the fact that research is a socialrelationship between the researcher and the researched; a rela-tionship that is dynamic and shifting. The turning points and ten-sions experienced along the way by Newton illustrate how socialrelationships constantly need to be attended to. Recognising anddeveloping this relationship as being built on trust was at timescrucial to the effectiveness of the research process (Pitts and Mill-er-Day, 2007; Rossman and Rallis, 1998). As Finlay (2002, p. 538)summarises: ‘‘the process and outcomes of data collection dependsfundamentally on how the research relationship evolves’’. Yet, asthe discussion has highlighted, this requires responsibility by theresearcher to uphold an ‘ethics of care’ that may not always beappropriately accounted for in institutional ethics guidelines andstructures. More significantly, there is a real risk that ethics of caremay be overlooked through the increasing emphasis on researchimpact which has been largely outputs focused (Pain et al., 2011).

6. Social research relationships beyond the field: analysis andwrite up

Tensions within the research relationship are not always re-stricted to the research field. They can also extend to include therelationships within the research team. Accordingly, the research-er/researched relationship should not be considered in isolation ofthe broader research process, particularly when there is more thanone researcher involved. This is especially the case during phasesof research that commonly require input from the whole researchteam (Mauthner and Doucet, 2008; Bailey et al., 2009). As Baileyet al. (2009, p. 258) note, ‘‘research methods and reportage cannotbe abstracted from the practices and experiences of the research-ers’’. They recognise the tendency for academia and research re-ports to ‘‘gloss over’’ the differences between researchers. Thispotential for difference is increased in the case of community levelsustainability research due to the increasing tendency for sustain-ability research to involve inter- or multi-disciplinary teams ofresearchers (Marsden, 2011).

Mauthner and Doucet (2008, p. 973) warn against the divisionof labour within research teams in the process of knowledge pro-duction. They argue that there is the risk that the separation of datacollection from its analysis serves to decontextualise knowledgethat is gained from ‘‘physically being in the field’’ (p. 978). This isa significant oversight in their opinion, since it is the experienceof being in the field that serves as data in its own right by providing‘‘access to non-textual knowledge which can enhance our under-standing of the phenomenon in question’’ (p. 981). From the begin-ning of our research, we were constantly aware of the importanceof Newton ‘‘being in the field’’; not only in terms of negotiating thedynamic researcher/researched relationships, but also for the pur-poses of understanding and experiencing the situated nature ofskills and knowledge for sustainable communities. In the analysis

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stage, for example, we made a conscious effort to regularly cometogether as a team to discuss key findings and Newton ‘experiencein the field’. As Mauthner and Doucet (2008, p. 977) argue, thereneeds to be more consistent efforts for research teams to engagein reflective processes that ‘‘put back in and take into accountthe contexts, subjectivities and research relationships throughwhich texts and knowledge are produced and made meaningful’’(p. 977). Although Newton was responsible for undertaking themajority of the field research, all members of the research team(co-authors) were involved in the desk based components of theprogramme. Furthermore, Franklin and Middleton were activelyinvolved in the focus group discussions that took place in Stroudand therefore did not come to the data ‘cold’ or from a distance.Accordingly, they were also able to provide input into discussionsabout the experience of being in the field.

Newton’s fluctuating position of distance and nearness pre-sented challenges for the data analysis conducted by the researchteam. Here, she was required to revert back to her initial outsider‘researcher’ role; yet at the same time retained feelings of ‘nearnessto the ’researched’ because of her enhanced insider knowledge fromhaving spent time in Stroud and with research participants. Comingtogether as a research team following the fieldwork was an impor-tant strategy for managing these challenges within the researchrelationship and was crucial for the data analysis. On the one hand,Newton’s experience in the field meant she could provide contex-tual and tacit knowledge to the research team’s analysis that,although not necessarily visible in the transcripts, was of crucialimportance in understanding the situated nature of skills andknowledge for sustainability in Stroud. On the other hand, Franklin,Middleton and Marsden were able to add a level of detachment pre-cisely because they had not engaged directly in the field research tothe same degree as Newton. Because they were more distant fromthe research participants, they were able to identify issues thatNewton may have overlooked or was unconsciously hesitant aboutexploring because of the friendships she had established.

These productive tensions were crucial in drawing conclusionsfrom the research. They demonstrated the value of coming to-gether as a research team to reflect collectively on the emergent im-pact of contexts, subjectivities and research relationships on theresearch findings. However, they also raised ethical dilemmaswhere the analysis within the research team could be interpretedas a form of ‘unethical outsourcing’. Yet, these ‘process’ issuesrelating to how the research is conducted are rarely addressed informal institutional ethic mechanisms. Mauthner and Doucet(2008, p. 976) suggest that it is important to be reflexive aboutthe implications of how knowledge is ‘‘put back together’’ anduse this as a ‘‘source of knowledge’’ in its own right, whilst simul-taneously considering the ethical challenges this may present. Oneway Newton sought to deal with this tension within the research-er/researched relationship and within the research team, in addi-tion to the fluctuating relationships with the researchparticipants, was to embark on a co-authored paper with one ofthe research participants titled ‘Striving for mutuality in researchrelationships: the value of participatory action research principles’.This paper explicitly focuses on the social nature of the researchrelationships, explores the tensions of these shifting dynamicsthroughout the research trajectory, and investigates ways in whichthese they have the potential to be mitigated through a commit-ment towards a more reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation-ship from the start (Newton and Parfitt, 2011).

7. Negotiation of exit

So far, we have made the case for an increased awareness ofthe myriad of social relationships that underpin the research

relationship both within and beyond the field. Whilst these canbe applicable to any community level research of communities,they are particularly important when conducting ‘sustainable com-munities’ research because to date they have been overlooked,especially in relation to broader geographical concerns with spaceand place (Franklin et al., 2011). Another important dimension ofthe research trajectory concerns the negotiation of exit. Here, weturn our attention to the point at which the fieldwork and fundingfor the research draws to a close. Negotiating a smooth exit is notonly important in terms of ‘ethics of care’ (Cahill et al., 2007; El-wood, 2007) by demonstrating ‘‘commitment to the people and is-sues concerned’’ (Cloke, 2002, p. 591); it also has practical saliencein leaving room for re-entry for further research. By way of illustra-tion we return to our reflections from undertaking research inStroud.

Towards the end of the fieldwork some of the key stakeholdersin Stroud organised a 3-day event to showcase a selection of thesustainable initiatives within the community. Newton volun-teered to assist in publicising the event and making notes. To-wards the close, one research participant commented to her (infront of others), that she had been accepted into their grouping:‘‘You’re one of us now’’. This brought up mixed feelings for Newton.On the one hand after investing much personal effort it wasrewarding to have reached a point of acceptance. However, at-tached to this was also a feeling of uneasiness due to her inten-tionality involved in reaching this very position. The blurreddistinction between ‘research’ and ‘personal relations’ had poten-tially created a ‘disingenuous friendship’ (Huisman, 2008). Indeed,for Newton, being told at this late stage in the research processthat she was ‘one of them’ raised questions about how to makeher inevitable withdrawal from the research. Reflecting upon thesocial relationships and rapport established so far changed herexit strategy, because being ‘one of us’ is not something thatcan easily be picked up and put down.

However, maintaining rapport is not easy in practice, particu-larly under short-term funding conditions. Often, it can lead to lit-tle contact being made after the fieldwork period is complete,which in turn creates a barrier to sustaining these relationshipsover the long term. Again, these types of issues are rarely ad-dressed in institutional ethics procedures. We argue that they arealso relevant to the research impact agenda in that the process ofcarrying out research is as valuable as the findings (e.g. outputs)and can in themselves generate impact. We were conscious thatthere was a real risk that we could perpetuate the stereotypes ofresearchers ‘‘breezing in and out’’ (Cloke, 2002, p. 591). In our case,we ensured channels of communication with research participantsremained open through email exchanges and phone calls. Whenthere was a sustainability event in Stroud, we made an effort to at-tend where possible in order to re-establish contact and retainvisibility.

In spite of efforts to sustain and maintain the social relation-ships we soon found out that they can easily be ruptured. Forexample, on one occasion during the write-up and analysis stagewe neglected to keep participants updated. This resulted in a tem-porary lapse of rapport and the subsequent need to invest new ef-fort in rebuilding relationships (Newton and Parfitt, 2011). Basedon this experience, we were mindful of the fragility of the socialrelationships established and that our exit strategy would needto maintain the good rapport that we had built throughout thecourse of the research. Thus, when the ESRC/ASC programme of re-search had drawn to a close, we organised an informal get-togetherwith research participants to gather their reflections on the re-search experience and explore opportunities for mutual collabora-tion on a topic that was more in line with their needs and interests.On reflection, it was at this point that we had established sufficient

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trust and rapport to begin to explore how a PAR approach could beused to engage in more collaborative research endeavours.12

8. Discussion: sustaining research relationships throughcommunity engagement

One of the key questions that engagement with communitiesraises is what they can usefully gain from participation in sustain-ability research. This brings us full circle to the points of resistancefaced at the beginning of the research. It was an issue that emergedacross several of the interviews and is illustrated below:

‘‘In my view the greatest barrier to the spread of sustainabilityknowledge is the fact that people will protect what they knowunless they feel they will gain something in return for sharingit. . .’’ (Susan).

In Stroud, participant suggestions as to how they might ‘‘gainsomething in return’’ took on a number of forms. Towards thebeginning of the research, we were faced with questions regardinghow we could compensate people who were giving up their timefor free to be interviewed. As the research progressed, and relation-ships with Newton became more established, requests were re-ceived to engage in more collaborative research with keycommunity stakeholders in line with the ethos of ‘action research’(Lewin, 1946). In effect, they had moved from a position of negoti-ating their involvement in research on community level sustain-ability practitioners, to exploring the potential for a role inresearch with these practitioners:

‘‘. . . ‘action research’ . . . to me that’s a more constructive way,cause that’s saying at the beginning, we’re all equals, we’re alljust bumbling through together, . . . you’re going to bring yourskills which are analytical skills from outside, . . . and we’ll alljust kind of learn as we go along, rather than you’ll come andresearch us, you’ll tell us, which really as a community you don’tfeel very comfortable with’’ (Susan) [emphasis added]

As Susan highlights, research participants expressed the desirefor a more reciprocal and collaborative research model that stres-ses the mutuality and reciprocity of exploring the use of researchtogether. Action research, which falls under the umbrella of PAR,was positioned by participants as providing a more equitable andsocially just form of research relationship. The desire for a re-searcher/researched relationship of ‘equals’ can be linked to anawareness amongst participants of the need to address the powerimbalance that characterises much of traditional hierarchical mod-els of research practice.

The attractions of using participatory approaches to develop amore embedded understanding of the role of skills and knowledgefor ‘sustainable communities’ are numerous. By shifting the termsof engagement from ‘on’ and ‘in’ to ‘with’, the ‘researched’ are notonly given voice, but play an active role in the research process it-self with the idea of enacting some form of social action to improvethe current situation. The emphasis on reciprocity and collabora-tion directly engages with the issue of a power imbalance in the re-search relationship, whilst the potential it has to reduce anyresistance to ‘being researched’ is more likely to engender buy-intothe research topic. A core strength of participatory research meth-ods also lies in their prioritisation and valuing of the relationshipsdeveloped between the researcher and researched (Cahill, 2007a,2007b). We argue that this should be recognised in all researchdealing with communities and have illustrated the importance of

12 Since the research on which this paper is based was completed, we have securedfunding to continue working in Stroud. We are currently using a more participatoryapproach to explore the role of sustainable food hubs in promoting sustainablecommunities (Franklin et al., 2011b).

recognising the social nature of the research relationship and itssalience to research impact. Furthermore, by recognising the plu-rality of knowledges amongst different actors and valuing so called‘lay knowledge’, participatory approaches and research ‘with’ com-munities deliberately refutes the idea that there is an ‘‘objectivereality that can be measured, analysed and predicted by suitablyqualified individuals’’ (Kindon et al., 2007b, p. 9). Rather, the valuelies in the potential for multiple interpretations of a single phe-nomenon by both researchers and participants (Greenwood andLevin, 1998). As a result, the challenges raised in our researchwould seemingly be avoided because the research participantswere actively engaged throughout the whole research process fromthe point of entry to the point of exit and beyond.

Another attraction of PAR includes its recognition of the impor-tance of ‘impact’, both as an end goal and a process. Not only arethe researched and the researchers working together to change aparticular situation for the better and construct new knowledge;but it is also the process and journey of securing the ‘impact’ thatis equally important. This point is also highlighted by Pain et al.(2011, p. 186) in their critique of the REF process. They argue thatthe current focus on ‘impact’ is output driven and ignores the valueof the ‘‘process of collaborative research. . .that generates impacts initself’’ through capacity building, empowerment and iterative dis-semination. They also highlight the problematic interpretation ofthe ‘quality’ of impact where innovative collaborative work be-tween academics and grassroots organisations at the micro or ‘lo-cal’ scale risks being overlooked in favour for more large scalenational and international economic and social policy interven-tions. Overall, these criticisms of the ‘impact’ agenda would sug-gest that a PAR approach could facilitate a more ethicallyresponsible approach to impact within academia and would ensurea smoother negotiation of access that is maintained throughout theresearch.

As we illustrated earlier, in spite of PAR’s many virtues, it maynot always be possible or appropriate for a range of context specificreasons. However, whether it is used or not, careful considerationalways needs to be given to the question of who you are undertak-ing research ‘with’, and who is included and excluded in this pro-cess. As argued earlier, this is significant in light of growing interestin ‘impact’ by RCUK and the REF. This brings us back to the ques-tion of how communities are engaged in the research. Althoughparticipatory approaches are increasingly positioned as providinga more grounded understanding of ‘insider perspectives’ and amore reciprocal research relationship, it becomes a ‘‘challenge tofigure out how to represent the multiplicity of ‘inside’’’ (Cahill,2007b, p. 2862). This draws on a wider critique of participatory ap-proaches related to its sometimes simplistic treatment of the con-cept of ‘community’ as homogenous and harmonious whichdisguises the inherent diversity and power relations within com-munities (Guijt and Shah, 1998).

In the case of the Stroud, we focused on individuals who alreadyhad an active involvement in sustainability initiatives. We wereconscious that these ‘engaged individuals’ only represented a smallpercentage of the overall Stroud population. Using participatorymethods amongst a relatively more ‘empowered’ and active groupof individuals could risk privileging their knowledge as representa-tive of the wider community. This point has been raised repeatedlyamongst development studies scholars who have highlighted thenegative effects of participatory approaches that can reinforceexisting power hierarchies by legitimising elite local knowledgebecause it has been produced through participatory approaches(Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Kothari, 2001; Mosse, 1994; Mohan,2001, 2007). There is also a risk that such approaches could be usedin a tokenistic manner in an effort to demonstrate commitment toa community and pursue a certain policy intervention (Cooke andKothari, 2001). In the context of the UK, an increasing emphasis on

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research impact could result in a growing popularity of participa-tory approaches with little critical engagement of who is being en-gaged. As Kesby et al. (2007, p. 19) argue, this will require abroader interrogation of how participation serves as a form ofpower with effects that can be negative, as well as ‘‘messy, entan-gled, highly variable and contingent’’. Rather, PAR should not be re-garded as a ‘‘power-free mode of research’’, but ‘‘situated,contestable work in progress’’ (Kesby et al., 2007, p. 25). It is there-fore clear that careful thought is required when considering whenand where the use of participatory approaches is appropriate in thecontext of ‘sustainable communities’ research.

9. Conclusion

In this paper we have sought to make the case for more atten-tion towards the social nature of the research process in sustain-ability research, namely the ‘sustainable communities’ policyagenda, particularly when exploring the role of communityengagement. We interpret this as the intricacies of the complexand dynamic researcher/researched relationship, including thechallenges of negotiating access, building up trust and sensitivityto the interpersonal bonds developed together with the ethicalchallenges this raises. We have provided illustrations of how sen-sitivity to social relationships was crucial to the research findingscommencing from the point of entry into the field, throughoutthe fieldwork period, and when the research drew to a close. Inso doing, not only have we ‘outed’ the role of the researcher (Fin-lay, 2002), we have also drawn attention to the broader researchcontext with our focus on the relationship between the ‘re-searched’, the field researcher and the research team; noting howthis relates to the process of knowledge creation (Mauthner andDoucet, 2008).

The way in which social relationships are negotiated plays animportant role in sustaining long term researcher/researched rela-tionships. It is in this context that (re-)negotiating access has directrelevance to the broader issue of research impact, both in terms ofthe nature of the impact and how this impact is secured. This link isbeginning to be addressed by the RCUK and the revised REF withthe recent push to measure ‘impact’ as a key indicator of researchexcellence. It is important to note how the new emphasis given to‘impact’ potentially puts the spotlight on how participants are en-gaged with through the research process. At the same time, how-ever, this also raises important questions about the potentialmisappropriation of participatory research methods as a way todemonstrate ‘impact’.

There are no easy answers for dealing with the challenges thatemerge from the process of negotiating the myriad of complex andshifting social relationships that characterise research ‘on’, ‘in’ and‘with’ communities. Failing to account for them is a significantomission. Although PAR provides a useful way of dealing withthe challenges of (re-)negotiating access, as we have illustrated,they may not always be appropriate or possible. So, how shouldresearchers then proceed? Reflecting upon the research experienceand being sensitive to the changing relationships along the re-search trajectory is an important starting point. Recognising andbeing transparent about the fluctuating positions of nearness andremoteness (Neal and Walters, 2006) is essential to this. In the caseof our research, this fluctuation served to highlight the importanceof the social relationships in the context of our research findingsand how this was crucial for deepening our understanding of com-munity level sustainability initiatives. With the growing emphasison measuring research impact, and the potential tensions this maycause within academia, these issues are of increasing importanceas more attention is focused on how to ensure that research is suf-ficiently committed to the people and places under investigation

(Cloke, 2002). How we (re-) negotiate these social relationshipswill play an important role in determining the extent to whichthere remains potential for future research ‘on’, ‘in’ and/or ‘with’‘sustainable communities’.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the research partici-pants in Stroud who gave up their time to be involved in the re-search. A special thanks to Alison Parfitt. We are also grateful forthe financial support from BRASS, ESRC and Academy for Sustain-able Communities (now Housing and Communities Agency) whichfunded the empirical work on which this paper is based.

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