In international development, survey respondents – especially those living in remote communities – rarely see the findings from the studies to which they’ve contributed. To make things worse, they all too often experience the impact of decisions resulting from data interpreted by non-local researchers. This practice isn’t only extractive, it also deepens communities’ mistrust towards researchers – and this can result in tensions in the most sensitive environments.
In his recent blog on research accountability, teaching assistant and researcher Christian Chiza Kashurha provides some interesting reflections on the point of doing research and who it is meant for. We all recognise that returning to communities bears additional costs, meaning that taking findings back – what we call ‘restitution’ activities (returning something to its rightful owner) – end up as a ‘nice-to-have’ budget line.
Depending on the geographical stretch of the research, the audience targeted and the confidentiality of the data, the people who end up using the research findings are rarely those reached during data collection. Yet, on top of the ethical dimension, this ‘extra’ step contributes to restoring trust between local actors and researchers for useful study and can also, if well planned, incorporate local knowledge for future research.
Our experience of bringing the research back to communities
Last February, I was preparing for the second round of data collection of the comparison group for a household survey on youth working in the cocoa sector in Ghana. Having analysed the data collected two years earlier at the beginning of the study, we decided that sharing this information with the communities we would return to was the least we could do before collecting more data.
I met with the team to discuss the best format and process to communicate research findings to an audience to whom we weren’t used to presenting. We realised that radio wouldn’t work, as some communities did not have access to it and the nature of the information (quantitative) would be better suited to a visual presentation with in-person explanation. We designed infographics and printed them on waterproof posters. That way, the design would help illustrate the data collected and the local chiefs could keep the posters.
We advised interviewers to present the posters at the end of the data collection exercise as a way of thanking local leaders and community members for their participation. However, in some communities, enumerators presented them directly to local chiefs before collecting data, to ease the community entry process and build trust.
