Social Research Methods and Research Practices > Social Research Methods
This chapter presents a participatory action research approach, which is used in the Salford Refugee and Asylum Seeker Participatory Action Research (RAPAR) project. It discusses the origins of the project and its initial stages. The chapter shows how the project volunteers were developed, the author’s experiences while working on the project, and the lessons that were learned while the study was being conducted.
This chapter presents the experiences of the authors from 1998 to 2001, when they developed a participatory research project in Manchester, England. This project involved people from Somalia who had recently arrived as refugees fleeing war. It first sets a brief historical background to the status in Somalia, and then describes how the members of the Somali community in Manchester and the academic researchers developed their methods for learning and improving health among the Somalis. The chapter also describes the process of evidence-base development and presents an early empirical example from the research project that shows how Somali women living in Britain are experiencing and solving barriers to their health needs within the primary-care system. It concludes with a discussion of the potential within this research approach for experiencing equality between community-based and academic researchers and community members.
This chapter addresses the need to clarify how qualitative research is conducted in the field. It identifies the barriers and challenges which the researchers face, including the measures that are needed to overcome them. The chapter demonstrates that extreme barriers to participation can be overcome, and also encourages researchers in less-challenging research settings to use measures which are designed to guide access to the research process.
This chapter looks at some of the issues that arise in service development and research, which limits itself exclusively to community representatives. Community representatives are often self-appointed, but are sometimes elected as information sources. The chapter first explores the dynamic between the potential for interdependence with other key actors within the community setting and the community representatives in representing race-related issues. It is also argued that service development and research projects must counterbalance the dominance of these influences. The discussion references the personal experiences of the author and uses two ethnographic case studies.
This chapter uses the recent experience of one of the authors, who developed community-level engagement in an urban health-regeneration programme, as the basis for its discussion. The first section discusses how individual awareness regarding needs can grow to the point where people are able to form groups that are focused on identifying practical tasks and operational issues which can help improve their situation. It describes this process and its respective parts, and also explores how the evidence bases developed in the first research phase are moved to the second phase.
This book is the first specifically to explore methodological issues relating to the involvement of refugees in both service evaluation and development and research more generally. It builds on a two-year seminar series funded by the ESRC and attended by members of a range of statutory and voluntary organisations, as well as academics and refugees themselves. The participants jointly drew up a set of good practice guidelines that are re-produced in the book for the first time.
Key features include a focus on the methodology for active involvement of refugees; a discussion of barriers to involvement; suggestions for overcoming barriers; analysis of existing practices and ideas for change and a discussion of the implications for policy, research and practice.
Doing research with refugees is essential reading for anyone working with in the field. This includes academics, researchers, health and social care providers and voluntary organisations. Refugees themselves who are interested in their role in service evaluation, development and research will also find the book of interest.
This chapter determines how qualitative methods can be used to study the processual notion of integration with the notion of home. This would help in understanding how the refugees interpret their flight and settlement. The chapter gives a brief background to forced resettlement and the previous research in the field, and then presents a detailed account of the research process. It is focused on several concerns, which include why and how certain questions were chosen, the use of scales and photography, and the issue of gatekeepers and key informants.
This chapter introduces readers to the main topic of this book, which is including refugees in research. It examines the policy background regarding asylum and immigration, and moves on to a discussion on the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) seminar series and its corresponding guidelines. The chapter then talks about the experience of doing research ‘with’ refugees. It ends with sections about the debates on the status of research conducted with refugees and the concept of gatekeepers.
This chapter looks at how to involve people who do not speak English in a way that acknowledges the presence of baseline language issues in whatever level and method of involvement is chosen. The first section describes the conceptual base, and refers to two research projects that the authors have conducted and worked on with translators/interpreters. The chapter then considers the way the same conclusion was achieved. It ends by drawing out the advantages of working with interpreters.
This chapter provides two case studies that show how a wider evidence base of refugee experiences and voices might be created using past research by non-government officials. The first case study is on understanding why asylum seekers come to the UK. It examines a recent piece of policy-oriented research that was commissioned by the Home Office and subsequently recognises its methodological rigidity. The second case study is about a national refugee-integration policy, which suggests that the existing evidence base of refugee voices and experiences needs to be supplemented and complemented to create a realistic picture of the effects of policies.
