Involving Communities as Skilled Learners: The STRAP Framework

Abstract

Conducting research in the field of development and social change entails working with communities, disadvantaged individuals and grassroots groups. This chapter takes such communities as skilled learners, and offers a ready-to-use community engagement checklist for research that is mindful of power relations. It explores five challenges, namely sharing, translation, relevance, accountability and power (STRAP), presented in the form of practical ‘questions’ that researchers should consider when doing fieldwork. The STRAP approach has the ability to create meaningful connections between researchers and the research subjects, while embedding the research into the process of social change itself. The chapter is illustrated with examples from our fieldwork with community Internet projects and radio stations across the world, and rural communities and grassroots women’s groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina.