Short Abstract

This panel explores participatory research methods through everyday stories of uncertainty, collaboration, and vulnerability. It invites reflection and demonstration of methods that reveal the tensions between power, agency, and performativity in lived development practice.

Description

​​In an era of social, political-economic, and environmental unrest, development must move beyond universalised narratives and toward participatory, context-specific knowledge practices. This panel invites stories from the field that grapple with lived uncertainties—stories that are unfinished, unexpected, or constantly evolving through attention to everyday life.

By engaging with local narratives and experiences, the panel explores how power and agency between researchers and communities emerge and shift as projects unfold. Collaborative knowledge-making can illuminate how people perceive and respond to crisis, but it also exposes the vulnerabilities and tensions inherent in participatory methods. What happens when collaboration doesn’t go to plan? When does participation redistribute power, and when does it reinforce tokenism?

Structured in two sessions, the panel first invites papers reflecting on participatory methods and collaboration. The second session opens space for active demonstrations of participatory techniques, emphasising embodied engagement over illustrative presentation. This format encourages presenters and participants to critically and creatively explore the performative dimensions of participation and the politics of knowledge production.

By centering stories that embrace uncertainty and vulnerability, the panel aims to reimagine development as a practice of listening, adapting, and reflecting—one that acknowledges the messiness of collaboration and the complex realities of those it seeks to engage.

This Workshop has 1 pending contribution proposal.
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