This podcast features a conversation with Sonja Marzi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. We discuss her innovative work with participatory and audiovisual methods, focusing on how these approaches can help capture the complexity and sensitivity of research participants’ lived experiences. Sonja shares how she adapted her methodology during the Covid-19 pandemic to collaborate remotely with women in Colombia. We explore both the opportunities and challenges of using audiovisual methods online and in person over extended periods. Finally, Sonja discusses her forthcoming book Researching Displacement Together: Co-producing Knowledge with Women in Colombia, and reflects on how her work pushes the boundaries of participatory research and co-production in academia and writing together.

Find out more about Sonja’s work here: Home - Dr Sonja Marzi and her book here: Researching Displacement Together: Co-producing Knowledge with Women in Colombia

The podcast is a conversation with Vidya Diwakar, Deputy Director of the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) and a Research Fellow at IDS, on working with partners globally to study poverty over time. We look at the history of CPAN, which arose from the partnerships formed during the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, and the opportunities and challenges that arise from mixing methods. As CPAN involves working with research institutions across 17 different countries, Vidya discusses how they not only include partners but also value their leadership in key areas of policy and practice, as well as in shaping their methodological approach and focal areas. Finally, we talk about how policy makers respond to their data and Vidya shares advice for other poverty researchers who are struggling to get traction for their work.

To find out more, please see their website https://www.ids.ac.uk/programme-and-centre/chronic-poverty-advisory-network-cpan/ or contact Andrew Shepherd (CPAN Director, A.Shepherd@associate.ids.ac.uk) or Vidya Diwakar (v.diwakar@ids.ac.uk).

The podcast is a conversation with Joanna Wheeler, founder and director of TransformativeStory and Alison Buckler, Senior Research Fellow at the Open University in the UK, on story and storytelling. We look at how this can be used in research, communications, and understanding how people learn. The conversation encompasses ethical storytelling and the importance of ownership and representation, making the point that even though this series is interested in innovative methods, storytelling is not another method, but a different way of thinking about how knowledge is generated.

To find out more about the storytelling guide recently published by Alison and Joanna, click here.

Information on other references mentioned by Joanna and Alison during their recording:

• Khoja-Moolji and Shenila’s paper on "Doing the ‘work of hearing’: girls' voices in transnational educational development campaigns." Published in Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, available here
• Bond’s recent update of their storytelling guidelines available here
• Pledge for Change’s commitment to more authentic storytelling available here