Journal

Community research, insight and data

A grassroots approach to gathering stories of lived experiences by training a network of "Community Researchers". The methodology emphasises authentic listening over traditional interviewing and involves collecting and transcribing conversations. The collected data is then processed through collaborative "Conversation Processing Workshops" to break conversations into "fragments" and extract "factors" related to social isolation and belonging. These factors are used to create a "Map of Belonging" (fuzzy cognitive maps), visually representing themes and interconnections, often with the aid of tools like Kumu and AI. This participatory analysis aims to shift power dynamics in research, ensuring that knowledge and benefits remain within the community and that findings are rooted in lived realities rather than abstract data points.