The third sphere: Reconceptualising allyship in community-based participatory research praxis

ABSTRACT

A central tenet in the conduct of community-based participatory research is the establishment of an allyship between researchers and other actors, a relation that ideally should be reciprocal in nature. In theory, true allyship would stand for a mutual search for understanding and potential transformation of life circumstances through investigation and argumentation, in the absence of coercive force or preset boundaries. However, in practice, researchers often behave as privileged guests that enter a particular local reality at predefined moments in time and leave when they are satisfied with what they got. We critically reflected on the challenge of developing equitable and sustainable relationships that cut across time-space dimensions of collective engagement and action in community-based research. We offer a critique of the project-based logic of participatory research practice and how this may unwittingly affirm actions that work against the concept of true allyship. We advocate for the creation of a ‘third sphere’ that unfolds itself as an experimental laboratory for constructive and disruptive thought, wherein every stakeholder is equally subjected to the centripetal force of meeting each other in the middle. This increases the likelihood that unanticipated and new ways of thinking and acting will emerge from the collective.

KEYWORDS:

• Participatory research
• allyship
• co-creation
• place-based research
• community
• space
• time
• third sphere
• action research

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Global Minds Scholarship Program, KU Leuven under Grant number 3H180579; the C1 Blue Sky Research Program, KU Leuven under Grant number 3H180579; and Stellenbosch University with support from the World Health Organisation Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (no grant number). We thank VLIRUOS, Belgium for sponsoring an exchange program between KU Leuven and Stellenbosch researchers to further explore the potential of the concept of ‘third sphere’ from a feminist research perspective in practice, which has been temporarily postponed due to travel restrictions related to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic; VLIR - OUS Belgium [No grant number]; C1 Blue Sky Research, KU Leuven [3H180579]; VLIROUS Global Minds, KU Leuven [3H180579].

Notes on contributors

Chloé Dierckx

Chloé Dierckx is a PhD researcher at the university of Leuven, faculty of social sciences and member of the Research group Social, Methodological and Theoretical Innovation / Kreative (SoMeTHin’K) and the Meaningful Interactions Laboratory (MintLab). She has a background in Visual arts and Anthropology and Cultural Politics. Her research is concerned with how techniques from art and design can be used to disseminate scientific research. Her main focus is on implementing these techniques within an academic context, both in education and research, by overcoming the art-science divide.

Lynn Hendricks

Lynn Hendricks is a practicing Research Psychologist and Epidemiologist who works in the Centre for Evidence Based Health Care in the Department of Global Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University. She is an executive member of the Psychological Society of South Africa. She is currently a Global Minds PhD scholar and is completing a dual PhD in Social Science at KU Leuven and Public Health at Stellenbosch University. She is part of the Social, Methodological & Theoretical Innovation /Kreative research group (SoMeTHin’K) at KU Leuven and contributes to the Global Arts Based Research Consortium. She teaches qualitative evidence synthesis and research methods at Stellenbosch University and KU Leuven. She has a vested interest in participatory visual research methodologies both in the lived world and in the virtual space.

Sara Coemans

Sara Coemans holds a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Leuven. Her scholarly interest lies mainly in the following areas: arts-based research, participatory research approaches and social pedagogy. She currently serves as coordinator qualitative methods for FLAMES (Flanders' training network for methodology and statistics) where she teaches qualitative research courses to junior researchers. Besides being an academic, she worked in the past as a policy member of a non-profit organization situated in the field of community-based practice; where she focused on collective work with communities and groups for social change. She has been a board member of one of the regional institutes for Community Development in Belgium since 2013.

Karin Hannes

Karin Hannes is an associate professor at the Social, Methodological & Theoretical Innovation /Kreative research group (SoMeTHin’K) from the Centre for Sociological Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven. She has an academic background in adult education and medical-social sciences and a PhD in medical sciences.  She teaches qualitative research methodology to undergraduate, master, and doctoral students. She is the author of Using mixed methods research synthesis for literature reviews, co-author of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Effectiveness, and editor of Qualitative Evidence Synthesis: Choosing the Right Approach. She is most known for her contributions to the debates on critical appraisal of qualitative research studies. On a primary research level, she has been focusing on the use and further development of arts-based and multi-sensory research methods in the context of working with vulnerable populations in social-cultural practice.