Cinthya talks about the process of letting go of power through her conducting of the project.
What are your experiences of attempting to let go of power as a researcher? What are the barriers to letting go of this power and what do you think helps facilitate letting go of power?
The fourth prompt is up! Feel free to head over there and get thinking about the last question for today!
I think this is one of the most challenging things about conducting participatory research! For things to be really participatory it is essential that things are left open to allow new directions to emerge from the priorities of participants. That can be so hard when applying to ethics committees or funding bodies which may want a really firm idea of what the project will look like and how final outputs will look. So, to me it seems really important to push back on those expectations but sometimes it does feel like such a challenge to do that and not succumb to the expectations of traditional research parameters.
I think the thing that most stood out to me on this listen through was that the letting-go (or active reliquishing, I guess) of power, was something that kept having to be asserted; making sure that it was interative, that she was always decentering herself as researcher - but bringing it back to the collective and getting full thoughts together. It's not enough to make that statement at the start (or even make it an action at the start); but had to be continually worked on.