The challenge of evaluating what is already participatory This blog post was written by Ángela María Báez-Silva Arias and originally appeared on EvalParticipativa. It is also available in Spanish. When we set out to evaluate Co-Inspira, a peacebuilding initiative in Colombia, we knew we were facing an unconventional challenge. This was not about assessing a
This blog was written by Brigitte Rohwerder. The recent IDS Bulletin on Building Disability Inclusive Futures had a paper focused on disability inclusive participatory research and in this blog I’ll explore one element that’s focused on in the paper – participatory researchers with disabilities. The lack of data about people with disabilities’ lived experiences has
This blog was written by Mieke Snijder and Brigitte Rohwerder. On the weekend me (Mieke) and 6 other women neighbours were doing a makeover of one of the wildlife garden planters in our neighbourhood. We were tackling the St John’s Wort that had taken over the planter. St John’s Wort is a powerful medicinal plant that is used
Our experience in Disability Inclusive Early Childhood Development and Education in Kenya This post was authored by Josephine Njungi. Knowledge development and curation, in process, outcome and ownership, is filled with power. Participatory research was adopted to address this, as this way of research enables and empowers people and groups of people to play an active and
This blog is authored by Mieke Snijder and Brigitte Rohwerder. “Trauma lives in systems and in the individuals that provide services within those systems” – Celina de Sola (Glasswing International). We finished our last blog with the notion that participatory methods can reconfigure relationships and introduced the idea of system change towards non-traumatising systems. In this blogpost we
This blog is authored by Mieke Snijder and Brigitte Rohwerder. This is the second blogpost in our series on “Exploring participatory methods for individual and collective healing” that has resulted from a workshop with IDS participatory researchers. In this blogpost we will discuss four ways in which we think participatory methods can facilitate healing. Participatory methods support participants to
This blog is written by Mieke Snijder (Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies) and Brigitte Rohwerder (Researcher, Institute of Development Studies). “Oppression is the distribution and concentration of trauma into bodies and communities designated less powerful. The mechanism that leaves these same bodies and communities without the money, time or support to heal” Prentis Hemphill (2024), What it
This is the third of a series of blogs hosted here that builds on, and extends, Reflecting Forewords (2024), a collection of forewords written by Robert from 1986 to 2020, each of which is paired with one or more pieces that offer contemporary riffs or contemplations on his ideas. Here, in the spirit of Reflecting Forewords we use Robert’s
This is the second of a series of blogs hosted here that builds on, and extends, Reflecting Forewords (2024), a collection of forewords written by Robert from 1986 to 2020, each of which is paired with one or more pieces that offer contemporary riffs or contemplations on his ideas. Here, in the spirit of Reflecting Forewords we use Robert’s
IDS Researcher Robert Chambers books (authored or co-authored) have been made open access for all to read for free. We are thrilled to announce that the IDS Participation, Inclusion and Social Change (PISC) cluster, in collaboration with Practical Action Publishing, and a generous group of crowdsource funders have recently made his back catalogue of books
This is the first of a series of blogs hosted here that builds on, and extends, Reflecting Forewords (2024), a collection of forewords written by Robert from 1986 to 2020, each of which is paired with one or more pieces that offer contemporary riffs or contemplations on his ideas. Here, in the spirit of Reflecting
The Inclusive Rigour Co-Lab report back from the European Evaluation Society conference. It has been over a month since EES2024, where we convened a discussion on Rethinking Rigour, together with colleagues from the Causal Pathways initiative and the Kinnect Group. In that time, we have been reflecting on the evolution of the discourse relating to