Ten for 10: Knowing what you don't know - community-led action research
/As we mark 10 years of SCDC as an independent organisation, Robin Jamieson reflects on his time as a travelling community capacity builder - and how communities can put research into action.
Socrates? Hey, we know that name. | Yea. Hey, look him up. Oh, it's under "So-crates." | Oh yea. "So-crates: 'The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing.'" | That's us, dude! - Bill and Ted
For reasons which remain unclear (at least to me) I have landed the job of SCDC travelling salesman community capacity builder. Like David Brent. I do sales work with communities at 70 miles per hour plus. Tops… (actually, quite often it’s a single-track road so it’s more like 20 stuck behind a campervan).
Once I have removed myself from the car (perhaps to get a fax of those important facts and figures, or to speak to people in a community hall) I frequently hear the same thing:
“We know what the issue is in the community but they (insert large and powerful body here) won’t listen to us!'“
From the point of view of the ‘ordinary person’ there was – as far as I can understand it – never a time when you would be listened to all that much. Whether the laird, the kirk, or the local busybody there was always someone telling you what to do.
But things change – ordinary punters fought for the vote and won (the next battle is to give 6 year olds the vote) whilst democratic institutions have grown over the last 100 years and we have new ways to make our voices heard.
Shared power
In an everyday sense, power and knowledge has tended to ‘naturally’ reside within the state and other powerful institutions. As a collective we have ceded power, control and knowledge in order that we can just get on with our lives.
However there are many areas where there is a need and a want to reconfigure power relations between communities and institutions. This is recognised by many communities themselves and by decision makers within institutions.
We’ve seen much progress in Scotland as ‘community empowerment’ has become a key feature of our policy landscape. But how to put it in practice?
This is where community-led action research comes in: A process where the community decides on the issue to be researched, designs and carries out the research, and makes use of the results.
Our experience working with communities suggests that both sides of the equation need support and re-assurance. Officers want to know with what authority the community speaks, how representative the view held is, and how they can be sure what they know is ‘true’.
Community bodies sometimes require support engaging with their wider community, creating recognised evidence and participating in decision making processes.
Recognising evidence
This is what we are currently doing though the Knowledge is Power project. We’re working with 10 community groups to support them to carry out community-led action research around the issues important to their communities.
Through this work we want to speed up the long-term process of increasing the voice of the public in relation to decisions made about their lives. In effect, this is a challenging of democratic structures but a deepening of democracy.
And although technological change is often thought cast as the harbinger of democratic revolution – on the ground, every day, work with communities is an important compliment to the development and betterment of our society.
