Researching Alongside: Engagements Inside and Outside the Academic Domain—A Look Back at Participatory Research on Mutual Aid
Chercher côte à côte: engagements dans et hors de l'espace académique. Retour sur une recherche participative sur l'entraide.
Résumé
In this chapter, we propose to question the engagement of the researcher from the perspective of citizen participation in social science research. To do this, we look back at a participatory research project focusing on mutual aid (or care) and conducted with neighborhood residents. Articulating the notion of “thinking with” with that of “social presence”, we reflect upon the terms of engagement of both researchers and residents, the work on relationships implied in conducting research “together”, and finally the way in which this research became a reality and what it produced. We identify four ways of being engaged in the research project (join the community, get involved, facilitate, explore). We show that researchers and citizens share them, but that differences within the collective encourage working on relationships. We analyze this work in terms of synchronization and the adjustment of social presence, and the way this leads to careful engagements. Finally, we analyze the multiple paths research has taken and their temporality, and explain that our research consisted not in a “thinking with”, but in a “thinking alongside”, and more precisely a “researching alongside”.