Using participatory methods with marginalised people in a crisis context

This Lived Experiences research was part of the wider Better Social Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research programme, led by researchers at the Institute of Development Studies. BASIC Research is funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The Lived Experiences project took place in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Uganda and the project’s funding was just over £300,000 and took place in 2023-2024.

This case study focuses on the research processes in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), a context affected by multiple protracted crises. It looked at the social assistance experiences of marginalised people in the KRI, and insights into how safer, and more dignified, inclusive, effective, and accountable provision might be fostered through inclusive participatory processes. The research partner Pasewan is based in Sulaymaniyah in the KRI. The marginalised groups focused on were disabled women and rural young people as they were identified to be amongst the most marginalised groups struggling to access social assistance.

During phase 1 of the research (January 2023 – May 2023), the researchers used qualitative, narrative, creative, and participatory methodologies with peer researchers, disabled women in Sulaymaniyah, and rural young people from Halabja (25 participants – 20 women and five men). Phase 2 brought participants and the research team together to collectively analyse the data generated in phase 1, co-construct video outputs on key insights, and develop recommendations and solutions (May 2023-September 2023). Phase 3 (October 2023-April 2024) involved participants in dialogue to influence social assistance stakeholders and developing their own actions to improve the dignity of provision processes through a campaign against the taking of photographs of social assistance recipients.

What happened

The research process involved two in-person visits by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) team to train local partner organisation Pasewan, and a group of peer researchers drawn from the two focus marginalised groups, in the participatory research processes and contextualised methodologies. Using peer researchers (who share identities with the research groups) in data generation helps builds the trusting relationships needed for open reflection and in-depth insight. Using participatory methodologies also positions participants as co-producers of knowledge and builds capacities and group agency. These are vital foundations for participant-led influencing action.

The first IDS fieldwork visit (February 2023) involved training the Pasewan team and six peer researchers (three with disabilities and three rural young people, including one person from a religious minority) in the participatory research approach and methods, and in documentation, translation, and support roles. IDS researchers then supported Pasewan and the disabled peer researchers in running the research processes with the disabled women’s group. Part of the preparation was to ensure that participants’ support needs were accommodated, both through disability awareness training and the presence of a sign language interpreter, with personal support tailored to individual participants’ needs. Translation between Kurdish and English was vital to the participatory process, so there were dedicated translators for both IDS team members throughout, as well as translation quality oversight from the English-speaking Pasewan team. After IDS left, the rural youth peer researchers and Pasewan ran the research processes with the rural young people’s group in Halabja.

The participatory research process generated narratives about participant’s experience of coping in crises and accessing social assistance. Many of the participatory exercises used visual/tactile methods, which are accessible ‘ways of knowing’, including ‘My World’, ‘Rivers of Life’ and plasticene (coloured clay) modelling. These creative methods were particularly suitable to the intention to generate knowledge of contextual, emotional, and relational aspects that may be missed by other approaches. The research team prioritised narrative methodologies to learn about participants’ experiences trying to access social assistance or coping in crisis. These were useful as people naturally communicate by telling stories, so were accessible regardless of education level, language competence, or communication mode.

The second visit involved a participatory collective analysis process with half of the participants and focused on participants’ social assistance narratives. IDS, supported by Pasewan, facilitated the participants in creating process maps from each relevant social assistance story, then they mapped the processes across the KRI social assistance context. Focus groups were also held to gather additional experiences on more sensitive topics (e.g. gendered experiences). Some participants produced creative videos to communicate their stories using a variety of approaches including drama, collage, puppetry, plasticine (coloured modelling clay) models, and oil pastels. Offering different options enabled anonymity to be maintained according to participants’ preferences. These co-constructed insight videos are now being used to communicate research findings in compelling ways. The collective analysis process involved synthesising key insights into social assistance issues and participants’ recommendations for improvements. The participants decided which issues they were most interested in taking action on for phase 3 and started planning their action research process using a step-by-step planning activity.

Following the IDS visit, participants started their participant-led phase 3 action. They devised a campaign focused on photo taking and dignity during social assistance delivery and reflected on what worked and what did not during group discussions and meetings.  

Findings and new knowledge

The participatory research processes provided deeper, more nuanced knowledge of the lived experiences of disabled women and rural young people coping in crises and trying to access social assistance in the KRI. Creative and visual methods helped generate new knowledge on the relatively unexplored emotional and psychosocial effects of urgently needing and trying to access social assistance. The participatory process created a safe space in which participants could share difficult and shaming experiences, such as of sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse. The collective analysis of participants’ experiences when coping in crisis, or receiving or trying to access social assistance in the KRI, led to some key overarching insights:

• Formal social assistance in Sulaymaniyah and Halabja is either non-existent or insufficient due to budgetary deficits resulting from ongoing tensions between the KRG and the federal government of Iraq.
• Marginalised people in the study are coping in crisis, mainly through irregular and inadequate support provided by semi-formal and informal social assistance actors and agencies. Many of these providers are part of patronage systems that are a continuing legacy of the civil war.
• Some positive experiences of dignified (but irregular) support are provided by organisations of people with disabilities during redistributions of donations.
• Social attitudes to those needing support in the KRI are stigmatising, and generate strong feelings and psychosocial impacts, which are barriers to accepting help and compound the emotional impacts caused by living through numerous crises. These impacts are currently under-recognised and unaddressed by social assistance, which focuses on material solutions.
• Existing social assistance is problematic (undignified, unsafe/risky, conditional on allegiances, unfair/exclusionary, or ineffective).
• Women risk sexual harassment when accessing assistance and stigma is a barrier to reporting it.
• Social assistance failures exacerbate the negative emotional and relational impacts of living in protracted crises; people’s material and psychosocial circumstances may not only persist but worsen.

Having generated a grounding understanding, the group PAR processes then nurtured the marginalised participants as social actors. Participants went on to build confidence to progressively leverage their own knowledge and prompt cross-stakeholder dialogue with social assistance providers in different engagement spaces on safer, and more dignified, inclusive, effective, and accountable social assistance for marginalised people in the KRI. They also took their own action to discourage the undignified process of providers taking photos of beneficiaries.

Lessons

It is important that enough time is invested in the recruitment stage to encourage the most marginalised participants, who might be less confident and more reticent about participating, or who face complex access needs. This is helped by having a partner grounded in the local context and encouragement to them that people who might not be expected to be able to participate can do so (for example, people with certain types of impairments).

Engaging marginalised people meaningfully requires more than getting everyone in the same room. The initial face-to-face workshop process therefore focused on generating an inclusive communication space for the research. This included tailoring the activities to the needs of people with disabilities, as well as holding the workshop in a community hall rather than a fancy hotel. The team also aimed to generate a friendly atmosphere and the sense that everyone was all equal. This included disrupting the assumed hierarchies between the IDS researchers, Pasewan team members, and participants through, for example, having meals together, but also having fun together during activities and taking turns in interactive sessions to get to know each other. Participatory exercises do not have to be serious to generate deep knowledge. More than that, breaking up more serious discussions with group strengthening and energising exercises is needed. Training partners who are unfamiliar with such methods and the reasons for them is crucial. These participatory approaches may be especially important for socially isolated marginalised people who may not have had the opportunity to interact in a group project or develop communication confidence beforehand.

Participants telling their own stories about what had happened in their lives helped the team understand how intersecting influences manifested themselves and unfolded in everyday social assistance relations and interactions. Participatory methods for generating stories in a supportive group context also mean the research process is participant-led rather than researcher-led; positioning participants as experts in their own lives and focusing the research on what matters to them.

Using creative visual and tactile methods helped access embodied and dynamic knowledge on unspoken aspects of a situation such as emotions and imaginings that are ordinarily hidden. At the same time, it is important to mitigate the ethical risks of working with emotions. The facilitators combined deeper exercises with lighter ones to help make the process soothing for participants.

For ethical practice, the research team ensured that participants had the option of telling us about a difficult or positive event; they were told in advance they would be asked to share stories, and that they only needed to talk about experiences they wanted to talk about. At the same time, many participants had been through very difficult experiences and there were naturally some tears. Part of the training focused on preparing team members to support participants in the moment and afterwards. The team also identified a local organisation that could offer help with any ongoing distress that was triggered. Navigating between the risks and benefits of emotional knowledge was helped by the extended research engagement and the ongoing relationships participants had with Pasewan. Additionally, because storytelling happened in the supportive and confidential group context that had been created, the activities provided a route to positive emotional processing and reframing.

Involving participants in analysing their own data can also change participants’ awareness and understanding. Participants identified the knowledge that other people face the same problems as an important realisation – it is a step towards developing a common purpose as the basis for group action.

The main limitation of this work was that the programme had a specific focus (social assistance) and a particular definition of that focus that did not necessarily fit the focus or interests of the participants. This restricted the participatory nature of the work to a certain extent, with the research focus not being directed by the participants, and resulted in the generation of stories that were less relevant to the focus of the programme which had resource implications (e.g. the translation of transcripts). However, within the limitations of the need to focus on social assistance due to the programme funding, it was possible to focus on what mattered to the participants.