Contribution short abstract:

This paper reflects on a year long process within Christian Aid on centering co-creation as part of an effort to work towards epistemic justice. The paper discusses the team’s focus on the conceptualization of co-creation and the challenges faced in actualizing such an approach.

Contribution long abstract:

This paper reflects on a year long process in which our research team, embedded within an international NGO, has begun the process of pursuing epistemic justice. This was guided by the question ‘How can evidence and learning spaces be transformed so that our Southern partners can exercise epistemic freedoms in knowledge creation processes?’ This paper draws from our attempts to collaboratively create these spaces in research projects based in Colombia, Haiti and Nigeria, and a deep-dive study on social protection in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso. Each project applied an approach of co-creation, with an emphasis on co-designing the research, intentional participant selection, participatory data collection, diversifying research methods and outputs, and intentional reciprocity and reflexivity at all stages of research and design. The paper analyses how such approaches to knowledge creation work towards the transformation of epistemic power structures. The paper provides special reference to the ethical challenges and opportunities found within an INGO, noting that such a space has different concerns than a purely academic space, particularly in terms of epistemic and fiscal power.