A Toolkit to conducting Participatory Research

This toolkit is aimed at people interested in carrying out participatory action research, especially on poverty and socioeconomic discrimination. Often researchers (including academic research and action research) try to capture the ‘lived experience’ to better their findings. However, this is often
done in a way in which knowledge from experience remains in the data collection phase and does not move to the analysis, discussion, interpretation and presentation of the data phase. This toolkit argues that those with lived experience should have greater ownership and control overresearch which is focused on their lives. This toolkit draws on the methodology used in the international Hidden Dimensions of Poverty Research carried out by ATD Fourth World (and partner organisation MATI in Bangladesh).
This document brings together the voices of co-researchers with lived experience of poverty, along with academics and practitioners demonstrating how each group brought a necessary and unique contribution
to the research.
However, it is also necessary to acknowledge that to properly carry out a piece of research in this way necessitates a particular set of requirements, strategies and often a change in mindset. This toolkit aims to fill in those gaps and serve as a useful guide.