{"id":253,"date":"2025-11-27T12:41:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T12:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/spark\/?p=253"},"modified":"2025-11-27T12:41:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T12:41:55","slug":"doing-research-differently-principles-for-equity-in-creative-and-participatory-research-settings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/spark\/doing-research-differently-principles-for-equity-in-creative-and-participatory-research-settings\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing Research Differently: Principles for equity in creative and participatory research settings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">In April 2025, a group of researchers, practitioners and creatives came together at a Method Hackathon hosted by the Creative and Innovative Research Methods Community of Practice and SPARK. The event focused on reimagining how creative research methods can be more equitable, inclusive, and genuinely participatory. From this event, six guiding principles emerged, they were: (1) Redistributing power throughout the process (2) Promoting agency and control (3) Recognising and actively reducing participation barriers (4) Having multiple ways to support expression (5) Building in flexibility and responsiveness and (6) Creating the space to hold brave conversations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this post, Hayley \u2013 one of SPARK\u2019s Research Fellows \u2013 shares how they\u2019ve been using principles 1 and 6 in their work since the hackathon\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Redistributing power throughout the process<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">When designing a participatory research project involving older people in custody, I wanted to move beyond using participatory methods <em>just<\/em> to gather lived experiences and also use participatory approaches in the analysis stage as well. The researcher often leads the analysis process and an awful lot of power is situated in how we interpretate data. Here researchers generally decide what counts as insight and how experiences are understood. To try to circumvent this and address (partially) some of the power imbalances at play, I designed an analysis process that used creative methods to enable participants to shape the data\u2019s meaning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Therefore, in addition to adopting photo-elicitation, body-mapping and peer-to-peer empathy interviews to gather people\u2019s experiences, we will be using poetry as a tool for analysis. Participants will work with their own words and stories to create poems, which will then inform the coding framework for the study. The intention behind this activity is to embed people in custody\u2019s perspectives into the interpretive process. By doing so, I hope that the analysis more accurately reflects the lived realities of the storytellers and shows nuances that might otherwise be overlooked by conventional thematic coding practices. I\u2019ll share a fuller blog on methods used in this project in Spring 2026 \u2013 offering some reflections on how effective they were in supporting voice and agency in research.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Creating the space to hold brave conversations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a recent event \u2013 Adventures in public engagement across the social sciences \u2013 we ask attendees and contributors to work with us to create a co-learning environment, where honesty and challenge could coexist with respect and care. We referred to this as a brave space &#8211; an environment where participants are encouraged and supported to speak openly, even when doing so may feel uncomfortable or a little bit risky (Arao and Clemins, 2013; Strano, c.2016, ScottBey Jones, c.2017).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the opening section of the event, we explained what a brave space is and why it was being used. We shared core behaviours to support it, outlined practical ways to challenge comments or actions if the space was disrupted, and identified people who could offer further support on inclusion and wellbeing issues at the event (if they arose). In terms of the practical tools to help create a brave space, we asked people to use the following (where they felt able and secure enough to do so):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Call Ins:<\/strong> Drawing on Nova Reid\u2019s (2021) and Loretta J. Ross\u2019s (2025) work, a \u2018call-in\u2019 is when we want to challenge a comment or action to create understanding, not to punish the person making it. It\u2019s a way to contest what someone has said or done, without making it a personal attack. It gives space for people to reflect on their words or behaviour, rethink them and make amends. Here\u2019s an example &#8211; <em>\u201cI felt [insert feeling] when you [insert what happened], did it land differently than you intended?\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Calling It Off:<\/strong> Ross (2025) also advocates that at any time we should also be aware we can end a conversation if it is progressing negatively or in a harmful way. Here\u2019s how you might do that &#8211; <em>\u201cThe direction\/content of this conversation isn\u2019t something I\u2019m comfortable with continuing. I would like to [insert your boundary\/what you want to happen].\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Checking In:<\/strong> This is when you think someone might have been negatively affected by the content of a conversation. It simply involves recognising that this might have happened and asking what is needed (if anything) to support them. Here\u2019s how you might open that conversation &#8211; <em>\u201cI wanted to check in after [insert simple overview of why you are checking in \u2013 i.e., after that conversation] to see if you wanted to talk about your experiences of it and is there anything you need right now?\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">This intentional framing and talking through of \u2018tools\u2019 people can use to create the environment desired, shifted the tone of the event and asked everyone to play a part in creating a brave space. This approach helped to create a more \u2018human\u2019 and \u2018informal\u2019 feel to the space, which attendees largely saw as a positive. We also used decoration (i.e., campfires, bunting, picnic blankets) and catering (i.e., marshmallows, pizza etc.) to help create this vibe. More so, people felt that highlighting these ideas at the start set a welcoming and supportive tone. Whilst this worked well during the event, upon reflection another useful technique to adopt would be to have a separate room available that people could use to \u2018take a minute\u2019 away from discussions. This would be a space for people to collect their thoughts or to spend some time in a less sensory-overloading space, and then re-engage with the event and its activities.<\/p>\n<p><em style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are just two examples of how I\u2019ve been working with the principles created in the Method Hackathon. So, how might you embed these principles in your next research activity or event? If you do use them, it would be great if you could share your experiences of applying them with me (email<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In April 2025, a group of researchers, practitioners and creatives came together at a Method Hackathon hosted by the Creative and Innovative Research Methods Community of Practice and SPARK. 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