What is the problem we are trying to address?
Gender based violence is a major global problem and is normalised in different ways in different contexts.
Research on the topic of GBV that can lead to behaviour change is essential, but the usual quantitative and qualitative research tools don’t give us the whole story.
To get a fuller picture, community members need to be actively involved in the research process, so that their voice is heard, and an understanding is shared throughout (and potentially beyond) the life of the project of how GBV is being experienced and changing over time in their community.
Introducing the community narration approach
Our team members, therefore, felt we needed to complement the usual research methods with an approach that enabled members of local communities to narrate their experiences
over time and interact with the research team, building up trust and dialogue with the researchers.
This led us to develop the idea of involving local ‘narrators’ who act on behalf of a community. These narrators share stories of change and highlight how violence is being experienced in their communities and what interventions are taking place (by government agencies, NGOs or the private sector) that are addressing GBV.
Through this process, we collectively learn about attitudes, behaviours, gaps in supporting interventions and also about their priority needs.
Narrating the impact of disasters on GBV
We started to pilot and use this approach in Nepal and Myanmar, where the focus of our project was on gaining insights into how women in communities affected by disasters and subsequent displacement were exposed to new or increased forms of violence.
We termed this process ‘displacement narration’ and have applied this approach now for more than two years, and we have used a similar ‘community’ narrator approach in Bangladesh.
Prepare your research team to support the narrator approach
The first step taken is to train research team members on how to use the narrator approach, and they develop topic areas related to GBV for regular discussion with the narrators who communicate what is happening in their community and how this is changing over time. The narrators who become part of the research team need to be good at building relationships, communicating, listening, observing, and facilitating conversations. Ideally, they come from the districts where field research is taking place.
Choose your narrators carefully
The selection of narrators is critical, as community narrators should not be biased or representative of a particular group in the community but should have excellent relationships and trust across their community.
Most importantly selected narrators should be in a position where they can discuss and share community experiences related to gender-based violence, giving careful consideration to the power dynamics and to the sensitive and often confidential nature of the topics,
Great care needs to be taken over personal data, and to also ensure that victims of GBV are not put at any risk or under any pressure to share stories in a way that leads to re-traumatisation.
“It has been a learning and sharing journey. I used to see things at the surface earlier, but with the process, I learnt that when you start looking into things minutely in the community you start to connect things and the bigger picture is more clearly seen”
Samjhana Bhujel (displacement narrator from Morang, Nepal
Ensure the community benefits from the narration process
Firstly, we hope that this approach will give the community a voice, and they can shape the research agenda and play a significant role in becoming increasingly involved in activities and decision-making processes that affect them.
Findings from the research study should be regularly fed back to the community via the narrator so that they can benefit immediately in direct or indirect ways.
They can also have the opportunity to discuss and challenge the findings and any recommendations coming from the research.
Our hope is that the process will develop an awareness of GBV, prompt relevant and timely interventions that help communities to reduce GBV through changing attitudes and behaviours, and better services and support for victims of GBV.
Address safeguarding and ethical considerations
The study of GBV can lead to sensitive issues and experiences being shared, and this has been the case in using the narrator approach. Lots of harrowing stories of violence have emerged, and whilst these have been important to learn from, they also require following up with relevant authorities.
Key Concerns related to safeguarding:
- Working in partnership with specialist organisations that can support women who are in distress and/or need advocacy support.
- Strict ethical protocols are needed, and all project members should undergo training in how to operationalise them.
- The process of asking a participant to share their stories should be experienced by them as empowering.
Our reflection led us to focus more on themes that change over time rather than traumatic personal experiences, and where such experiences are shared, we always anonymise names and try to edit material so that individuals cannot be easily identified.
Photos are used wherever possible to support the narration process, but again care is taken to obtain permission and not use photos of children or vulnerable adults.
Evolve the approach for use with different participants
We believe this approach can be beneficial in a wide range of studies which don’t necessarily have a focus on GBV. However, consider carefully how best to implement the narrator approach with your selected communities and study participants.
We are now exploring how the narrator approach could be used within a study on FGM with children (aged 11+) and young adults in Kenya.
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Given the ethical issues of involving children, we are in the process of evolving the approach so that we pilot working with “narrator groups” in schools within communities. This means that safeguarding risks are reduced, and the groups themselves can benefit over time through facilitated conversations related to gender and how they experience it within their communities.
Final Thoughts
Reflecting on the benefits of the narrator approach, Professor Tamsin Bradley comments as follows:
“Longitudinal insights are very rarely captured in development and hardly even in fragile contexts in which people live with multiple insecurities. Giving voice to the most marginalised should be central to any process committed to inclusive transformation.”
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