Designing better on-farm research in Australia using a participatory workshop process

There are renewed calls for end-user participation and the integration of local knowledge in agricultural research. In Australia, the response has included an increased emphasis on participatory on-farm research with farmers and commercial agronomists that tests accepted principals to answer practical local farming questions. However, this pursuit of greater relevance has often led to compromises in research designs, unclear results and frustration amongst farmers, commercial agronomists and Research Development and Extension (RDE) agency researchers. This paper reports on a series of pre-season planning workshops from `Doing successful on-farm research', a workshop-based initiative that provides guidelines and a series of interactive activities to plan better participatory on-farm research. The workshop approach helps people design on-farm research that is appropriate to their own needs and local conditions. It assists them to clearly identify their issues, develop specific research questions and decide the best approach to answer those questions with the appropriate rigour for their own situations. These `Doing successful on-farm research' workshops address four potential deficiencies in on-farm research and farming systems RDE more generally in Australia: (1) variable participation of scientists and farmers in on-farm research; (2) the lack of clear guidelines for effective participatory practice and on-farm research; (3) limited support for on-farm research beyond the intensive investigations conducted by RDE agencies and (4) limited support for industry and farmers to contextualise information and research outcomes for specific individual circumstances and faster adaptation of technology. This may be a valuable contribution to balancing the demands for both relevance and rigour in on-farm research in Australia. In "Ground–breaking Stuff’- Proceedings of the 13th Australian Society of Agronomy Conference, 10-14 September 2006, Perth, Western Australia.

Examining Participatory Governance in a Devolving UK: insights from national parks policy development in Northern Ireland

This paper provides a contemporary examination of policy making and participatory practice in the context of devolving governance in the UK. The paper takes Northern Ireland as its focus and is particularly timely considering the context of devolved governance, the ongoing transition from conflict to relative peace and the potential for rejuvenating democracy through participatory
governance. The paper concentrates on one particular policy process, namely the attempted designation of a national park in the Mournes Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. A thematic analysis of qualitative data is drawn upon to analyse the structural factors that framed the policymaking process, in particular the role of power in determining how consultation processes were 2 initiated, designed and undertaken. Using Lukes’ model) as an analytical framework, power is shown to manifest at multiple levels within the policy-making process to influence policy outcomes. The paper reveals how the persistence of a top-down approach to policy development combined with a highly parochial political outlook undermined attempts to designate a Mourne National Park. The paper concludes that, given the immaturity of recently devolved government in
Northern Ireland, in this instance, the democratising intentions of devolved governance have not been met. This has implications for Northern Ireland’s recent reform of public administration which devolves certain planning powers to local authority level and the management of the internationally significant Mournes landscape.

Instrumental and interpretive methods in evaluating urban programmes

The turn within urban policy to address increasingly complex social, economic and environmental problems has exposed some of the fragility of traditional measurement models and their reliance on the rational paradigm. This article looks at the experiences of the European Union (EU) Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and its particular attempt to construct new District Partnerships to deliver area-based regeneration programmes. It highlights the need to combine instrumental and interpretative evaluation methods in an attempt to explain the wider contribution of governance to conflict resolution and participatory practice in local development. It concludes by highlighting the value of conceptual approaches that deal with the politics of evaluation and the distributional effects of policy interventions designed to create new relationships within and between multiple stakeholders.

Changing climate, changing decisions : understanding climate adaptation decision-making and the way science supports it

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências do Ambiente, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2015

Agir de manière appropriée: la participation des jeunes à l'aménagement

La réflexion sur l’éthique et la participation des jeunes et des enfants à l’aménagement comporte au moins deux dimensions : d’une part, les justifications d’une telle participation ; d’autre part, les problèmes que la pratique participative fait émerger et face auxquels les cadres de référence conventionnels (non participatifs) ne sont pas toujours utiles. Le présent article aborde ces deux dimensions et explore leurs liens à la lumière de trois méthodes distinctes en matière de théorie morale, soit l’éthique déontologique, l’éthique conséquentialiste et l’éthique de la vertu. Sur la base d’une expérience participative d’aménagement inscrite dans le programme Grandir en Ville de l’UNESCO, certaines contradictions entre les principes d’une pratique participative avec des enfants et la manière dont les problèmes éthiques sont parfois gérés sont mises en évidence.

When parents love and don't love their children : some children's stories

This paper discusses a small pilot study with Anglo-Australian children aged 6 to 8 years. The children expressed through stories of what it meant for them when parents love and care for their children, and when they do not. Themes from stories of parental love and care included: relationships, shared special times, being safe and protected, and physical affection. Stories about parents who did not love or care for their children covered themes of abandonment, isolation and sadness. The study contributes an approach that can improve professional practice with children and early outcomes showing the importance of seeking children's perspectives in decision-making about their welfare.

Muslim young people online: “Acts of citizenship” in socially networked spaces

This paper reviews the current literature regarding Muslim young people’s online social networking and participatory practices with the aim of examining whether these practices open up new spaces of civic engagement and political par-ticipation. The paper focuses on the experiences of young Muslims living in western societies, where, since September 11, the ability to assert claims as citizens in the public arena has diminished. The paper draws upon Isin & Nielsen’s (2008) “acts of citizenship” to define the online practices of many Muslim youth, for whom the internet provides a space where new performances of citizenship are enacted outside of formal citizenship rights and spaces of participa-tion. These “acts" are evaluated in light of theories which articulate the changing nature of publics and the public sphere in a digital era. The paper will use this conceptual framework in conjunction with the literature review to ex-plore whether virtual, online spaces offer young Muslims an opportunity to create a more inclusive discursive space to interact with co-citizens, engage with social and political issues and assert their citizen rights than is otherwise afforded by formal political structures; a need highlighted by policies which target minority Muslim young people for greater civ-ic participation but which do not reflect the interests and values of Muslim young people.

TREATED

The exhibition and community engagement hub, TREATED (the sublime passage), is at the Wyndham Art Gallery. The show allows a greater number of people to reflect on and engage with the works completed on-site, engage with the practice of the artists, and to consider ideas around process, elimination and purification as seen in the public art event, TREATMENT. There are tensions to explore here for as sewerage is transformed into liquid gold (water), ideas take form through material processes to become artworks. The exhibition also reveals much more about the artists’ research and aspects and factoids about the site. Architectural elements (installed by Bishop and Reis) referencing Melbourne Water’s Information Centre will activate the space – in displays, archival material, discarded materials and unused footage, diary notes and documentation of the project including video interviews with key people involved in the project. Two workshops will run with artists and members of the community, inviting participants to respond to the work, a particular process and prompt. This is a feature of the project that will allow for collaboration with a wide range of community stakeholders as workshops would draw on the histories and technologies of the site to provoke reflection and a material response from participants.

A participatory design agenda for ubiquitous computing : a case study in dental practice

This paper reflects upon our attempts to bring a participatory design approach to design research into interfaces that better support dental practice. The project brought together design researchers, general and specialist dental practitioners, the CEO of a dental software company and, to a limited extent, dental patients. We explored the potential for deployment of speech and gesture technologies in the challenging and authentic context of dental practices. The paper describes the various motivations behind the project, the negotiation of access and the development of the participant relationships as seen from the researchers' perspectives. Conducting participatory design sessions with busy professionals demands preparation, improvisation, and clarity of purpose. The paper describes how we identified what went well and when to shift tactics. The contribution of the paper is in its description of what we learned in bringing participatory design principles to a project that spanned technical research interests, commercial objectives and placing demands upon the time of skilled professionals.

Documentary practice in a participatory culture

Debates concerning the veracity, ethics and politics of the documentary form circle endlessly around the function of those who participate in it, and the meaning attributed to their participation. Great significance is attached to the way that documentary filmmakers do or do not participate in the world they seek to represent, just as great significance is attached to those subjects whose participation extends beyond playing the part of eyewitness or expert, such that they become part of the very filmmaking process itself. This Ph.D. explores the interface between documentary practice and participatory culture by looking at how their practices, discursive fields and histories intersect, but also by looking at how participating in one might mean participating in the other. In short, the research is an examination of participatory culture through the lens of documentary practice and documentary criticism. In the process, however, this examination of participatory culture will in turn shed light on documentary thinking, especially the meaning and function of ‘the participant’ in contemporary documentary practice. A number of ways of conceiving of participation in documentary practice are discussed in this research, but one of the ideas that gives purpose to that investigation is the notion that the participant in contemporary documentary practice is someone who belongs to a participatory culture in particular. Not only does this mean that those subjects who play a part in a documentary are already informed by their engagement with a range of everyday media practices before the documentary apparatus arrives, the audience for such films are similarly informed and engaged. This audience have their own expectations about how they should be addressed by media producers in general, a fact that feeds back into their expectations about participatory approaches to documentary practice too. It is the ambition of this research to get closer to understanding the relationship between participants in the audience, in documentary and ancillary media texts, as well as behind the camera, and to think about how these relationships constitute a context for the production and reception of documentary films, but also how this context might provide a model for thinking about participatory culture itself. One way that documentary practice and participatory culture converge in this research is in the kind of participatory documentary that I call the ‘Camera Movie’, a narrow mode of documentary filmmaking that appeals directly to contemporary audiences’ desires for innovation and participation, something that is achieved in this case by giving documentary subjects control of the camera. If there is a certain inevitability about this research having to contend with the notion of the ‘participatory documentary’, the ‘participatory camera’ also emerges strongly in this context, especially as a conduit between producer and consumer. Making up the creative component of this research are two documentaries about the reality television event Band In A Bubble, and participatory media practices more broadly. The single-screen film, Hubbub , gives form to the collective intelligence and polyphonous voice of contemporary audiences who must be addressed and solicited in increasingly innovative ways. One More Like That is a split-screen, DVD-Video with alternate audio channels selected by a user who thereby chooses who listens and who speaks in the ongoing conversation between media producers and media consumers. It should be clear from the description above that my own practice does not extend to highly interactive, multi-authored or web-enabled practices, nor the distributed practices one might associate with social media and online collaboration. Mine is fundamentally a single authored, documentary video practice that seeks to analyse and represent participatory culture on screen, and for this reason the Ph.D. refrains from a sustained discussion of the kinds of collaborative practices listed above. This is not to say that such practices don’t also represent an important intersection of documentary practice and participatory culture, they simply represent a different point of intersection. Being practice-led, this research takes its procedural cues from the nature of the practice itself, and sketches parameters that are most enabling of the idea that the practice sets the terms of its own investigation.

Building citizens : participatory planning practice and a transformative politics of difference

Decision makers frequently use separate participatory activities to involve marginalised groups. This approach can generate valuable insights, but it has limitations. We discuss the benefits and limits through two examples involving young people, and outline how the approach can be modified, thereby building citizens who are responsive to other perspectives.

Supporting therapist engagement in evidence based practice: Developing a continuing education programme through participatory action research

Therapists find it challenging to integrate research evidence into their clinical decision-making because it may involve modifying their existing practices. Although continuing education (CE) programmes for evidence-based practice (EBP) have employed various approaches to increase individual practitioner’s knowledge and skills, these have been shown to have little impact in changing customary behaviours. To date, there has been little attempt to actively engage therapists as collaborators in developing educational processes concerning EBP. The researcher collaborated with seven clinical therapists (one occupational therapist, four physiotherapists and two speech and language therapists) enrolled in a new post-qualification Implementing Evidence in Therapy Practice (IETP) MSc module to monitor and adapt the learning programme over ten weeks. The participating therapists actively engaged in participatory action research (PAR) iterative cycles of reflecting→ planning→ acting→ observing→ reflecting with the researcher. Mixed methods were used to evaluate the IETP module and its influence on therapists’ subsequent engagement in EBP activities. Data were gathered immediately on completion of the module and five months later. Immediate post-module findings revealed four components as being important to the therapists: 1) characteristics of the learning environment; 2) acquisition of relevant EBP skills; 3) nature of the learning process; and 4) acquiring confidence. The two themes and sub-themes which emerged from individual interviews conducted five months post-module expanded on the four components already identified. Theme 1: Experiencing the learning (sub-themes: module organisation; learning is relational; improving the module); and theme 2: Enacting the learning through a new way of being (sub-themes: criticality and reflection; self agency; modelling EBP behaviours; positioning self in an EB work culture). The therapists’ perspectives had by then shifted from that of a learner to that of a clinician constructing a new sense of self as an evidence-based practitioner. Findings from this study underline the importance of the process of socially constructed knowledge and of empowering learners through collaboratively designed continuing education programmes. In the student-driven learning environment, therapists chose repetitive skill-building and authentic problem-solving activities which reflected the complexity of the environments to which they were expected to transfer their learning. These findings have implications for educators designing EBP continuing education programmes, during which students develop professional ways of being.