The following blog post, by
Afsana Afrin Esha, PhD Candidate in the department of Geography, accompanies their winning entry to the Durham
Research Methods Centre Picturing Research Competition. Many congratulations
to Afsana! You can view all the fantastic entries here.
Water is perhaps one of the most multifaceted materials on earth. The remarkable thing about water is that it seeps across all boundaries and is simultaneously economic, political, social, cultural, institutional, spiritual and ecological. Imagining a day without our daily water supply displays how we are meshed together with water. It affects all segments of society, streams flowing within us and through all aspects of our lives. Throughout history, different societies have progressed by improving access to clean water for drinking, for sanitation and for agriculture. But there are still millions worldwide, who struggle unthinkably to manage simply a glass of drinking water. My entry at the DMRC Picturing Research Competition provides a glimpse of such water struggles in coastal Bangladesh through the lens of this young girl compelled to travel long distances and carry heavy pots to collect water everyday.
Figure: Mom says I
must bring water. Source: Afsana Afrin Esha, Author.
Water research has evolved in the field of natural sciences, engineering, and in the social sciences with increasing significance of interdisciplinary research. Within water research, participatory research approaches have increased considering the complexity of issues and the need to produce solutions suited to the people. It represents a school of thought with methodologies and research designs grounded in ideas of social justice, knowledge democratization and acknowledging the active role of research participants in the different stages of research. Distinct from traditional research approaches, participatory research is “for” and “from” the people. In this blog, I attempt to map participatory research approaches that have been applied in water research studies over the past years.
Participatory approaches are useful to increase research relevancy, possess potential for empowerment to address public challenges and creates more opportunity for implementation of research findings, and therefore are growingly adopted by water scholars for multidisciplinary work (Grassini, 2018; Irvin & Stansbury, 2004). Questions about power, control, and choices in the involvement of participants in the research process are often explored (Cornwall & Jewkes, 1995). These are important questions for research with water. There is an advantageous opportunity to engage in knowledge co-production and changing the way in which science informs pathways of action and decision making (Lane et al., 2011).
Participatory Rural Appraisal
(PRA) is one such multi-disciplinary approach comprising of various approaches
and methodologies to enable local people to share, enhance, and analyze their
knowledge of life and conditions to plan and act (Chambers, 1994). It is widely
used by NGOs and project-oriented organizations to create visual maps. Scholars
have also used PRA in diverse fields such as water resources management, wetland
development, watershed planning, and management, groundwater management,
drinking water, and sanitation (Khair et al., 2021). This document
provides various results identified through PRA tools such as transect walks,
focus
group discussions (FGDs), and mapping.
For my own research, I have used FGDs to gain an in-depth understanding of
water insecurity issues of coastal inhabitants in Bangladesh (image attached
below).
Figure: Focus Group Discussions
with deep tube well users in Bangladesh. Source: Afsana Afrin Esha, Author.
Citizen science is another such
multi-disciplinary participatory approach designed to increase public
involvement in and understanding of science (Bonney et al., 2009; Irwin, 2002).
It isn’t new, the first recorded use
of citizen science in freshwater conservation dates back to the volunteer
‘river keepers’ of the Middle Ages. Public involvement has been increasing
and it now has applications in the ecological and biophysical sciences,
including conservation, hydrology, and water resources research. Some
interesting examples depicting the use of citizen science can be seen in river
management, catchment
based approaches, monitoring
water quality within the water sector. Within England, mobile apps and
cloud monitoring allow people to monitor water quality (FreshWater Watch), understand
issues in catchment ( CaBA)
and river restoration (RRC
MICS). Citizen science is uniquely positioned to tackle environmental
challenges posed by worsening pollution and climate change.
Figure: Volunteers take part in citizen science projects. Source: Earthwatch Europe
Water management and use
comprises of various stakeholders, especially in cases where water is a shared
resource, which very often is the case. Stakeholders
have a pivotal role and hold the power to influence many processes within
water governance. Stakeholder engagement is a useful research tool which cchallengestraditional
top-down approaches to address water resource management and water governance.
In the last three decades, stakeholder engagement has been embraced in water
resource management for capacity building in decision making, reducing technocratic
approaches, developing solutions to address water challenges, social justice,
and enhance fairness, among others (Conallin et al., 2017; Conley & Moote,
2003; Lauer et al., 2018). However, stakeholders changing over the duration of
a project can impose challenges in such a research approach.
Photovoice is an increasingly popular method which asks participants to capture key themes in photos, collaborative analyze and discuss them, and communicate themes back to their community (Wang & Burris, 1997). With social constructivism, empowerment education, feminist theory, and documentary photography at heart (Fantini, 2017), this method is used across different disciplines. Water scholars have used photovoice to evaluate water and health, sanitation, hygiene, water governance, watershed management, and water resources (Bisung et al., 2015; Fantini, 2017; Radonic &Jacob, 2021). My own photo which I shared as part of Durham Research Methods Centre (DRMC) Picturing Research Competition, provides an in-depth understanding of everyday water challenges in Bangladesh through the lens of a child (image attached above). Seven-year-old Fiha takes the burden of water collection due to conflict between her mother and in-laws. She and her younger sister walk for an hour to the water technology point (pond-sand -filter) everyday, some days waiting in line for hours and some days to find no water dripping through, further straining existing conflict. This has an impact on their education, playtime, physical health and mental well-being. This image tries to capture these struggles. The obscure look of the girl towards the trickling water summarizes it all. Several examples are listed here.
Sustainable future scenarios (SFS) building on earlier concepts of scenarios are future narratives designed to produce anticipatory knowledge (Roque, 2022). Scenarios have been applied to a range of water problems: water sustainability, water use, water products and services, water management, and water policy (Henriques et al., 2015; Gielczewski et al., 2011). In the light of uncertain futures due to climatic impacts, it acts as a useful tool for research. For example, researchers probed into water futures up to 2060 for Phoenix, Arizona creating maps using SFS and WaterSim6, a water modeling tool (Sampson et al., 2020). Findings from this work showed that scenario co-creation extended the capacity to explore urban development and water demands and encourage informed discussions among stakeholders on the future of water.
Participatory approaches share a
collective value that bringing participants into the full research process
improves both the research and the applications of the research. Engaging in
participatory research in water has shown to bring numerous benefits, including
but not limited to giving agency to local people in scientific production, democratizing
science, diversity, and representation of perspectives, opportunities for
action planning, evaluation, and education (Radonic & Jacob, 2021; Ricaurte
et al., 2014; van Buuren et al., 2019). One of the most hopeful features of
this approach is that it opens up opportunities for us to get involved, to
perform, and to assist. The future of water will not be a hopeful one without multifaceted
understanding and our participation.
Further reading and references:
Bisung, E., Elliott, S. J.,
Abudho, B., Karanja, D. M., & Schuster-Wallace, C. J. (2015). Using
photovoice as a community based participatoryresearch tool for changing water,
sanitation, and hygiene behaviours in Usoma, Kenya. BioMed Research
International, 2015,1–10
Chambers, R. (1994).
Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): Challenges, potentials and paradigm. World
Development, 22(10), 1437–1454.
Conallin, J. C., Dickens, C.,
Hearne, D., & Allan, C. (2017). Chapter 7—Stakeholder engagement in
environmental water management. InA. C. Horne, J. A. Webb, M. J. Stewardson, B.
Richter, & M. Acreman (Eds.), Water for the environment (pp. 129–150).
Academic Press.
Conley, A., & Moote, M. A.
(2003). Evaluating collaborative natural resource management. Society
& Natural Resources,16(5), 371–386.
Cornwall, A., & Jewkes, R.
(1995). What is participatory research? Social Science & Medicine, 41(12), 1667–1676
Fantini, E. (2017). Picturing waters: a review of Photovoice and similar participatory visual research on water governance. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 4(5), e1226.
Gielczewski, M., Stelmaszczyk,
M., Piniewski, M., & Okruszko, T. (2011). How can we involve stakeholders
in the development of water scenarios? Narew River Basin case study. Journal of
Water and Climate Change, 2(2-3), 166–179
Grassini, L. (2018).
Participatory water governance between theories and practices: Learning from a
community-based initiative in India. International Journal of Water Resources
Development, 35(3), 404–429.
Henriques, C., Garnett, K.,
Weatherhead, E. K., Lickorish, F. A., Forrow, D., & Delgado, J. (2015). The
future water environment—Using sce-narios to explore the significant water
management challenges in England and Wales to 2050. Science of the Total
Environment, 512,381–396.
Irvin, R. A., & Stansbury, J.
(2004). Citizen participation in decision making: Is it worth the effort? Public
Administration Review, 64(1), 55–65.
Khair, S., Ashfaq, M., Ali, A.,
Akhtar, S., Mangan, T., & Allan, C. (2021). Participatory rural appraisal:
Starting the co-inquiry into groundwater and livelihoods.
Lane, S. N., Odoni, N.,
Landström, C., Whatmore, S. J., Ward, N., & Bradley, S. (2011). Doing flood
risk science differently: An experiment in radical scientific method.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 36(1), 15–36
Lauer, F. I., Metcalf, A. L.,
Metcalf, E. C., & Mohr, J. J. (2018). Public engagement in
social-ecological systems management: An application of social justice theory. Society
& Natural Resources,31(1), 4–20.
Radonic, L., & Jacob, C. E.
(2021). Examining the cracks in universal water coverage: Women document the
burdens of household water insecurity. Water Alternatives,14(1), 60–78
Roque, A., Wutich, A., Quimby,
B., Porter, S., Zheng, M., Hossain, M. J., & Brewis, A. (2022). Participatory
approaches in water research: A review. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water,
9(2), e1577.
Sampson, D. A., Cook, E. M.,
Davidson, M. J., Grimm, N. B., & Iwaniec, D. M. (2020). Simulating
alternative sustainable water futures. Sustainability Science, 15, 1199–1210
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