Attempting a participatory action research (PAR) dissertation with refugee women during the COVID-19 pandemic or: How I learned to embrace messiness and failure

Abstract

Conducting participatory action research (PAR) is an aspirational, dynamic, but notoriously unpredictable endeavour. In this article, I discuss challenges and lessons from my ongoing dissertation study, planned as a PAR approach to learning with refugee women in Germany about their conceptualisation of mental health in the post-resettlement context and their service and intervention needs and resources.It proved challenging to transfer central ideas around co-creation (e.g., through workshops and activities) – developed in the Anglo-Saxon/North American context – to an online context with German as a foreign language (for both the participants and me) amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. I, therefore, adapted the methodological approach to incorporate collaboration tools such as Padlet (for online meetings) and Ketso (for in-person meetings) and provide short briefings about scientific evidence and concepts focused specifically on issues raised during the discussions (e.g., racism, structural discrimination in German educational and health systems). Furthermore, to ensure the representation of multiple experiences, I incorporated a document analysis component for advocacy and information documents developed by migrant-led organisations in Germany. Situational analysis is proposed as a collaborative interpretation tool that can reduce the risk of epistemic and epistemological violence.Along the research process and amid the groundswell of challenges, a focus on ethics (of care, epistemological, and relational) provided a strong anchor for securing a way forward. These experiences and lessons learned can provide valuable insight into operationalising co-creation, relational ethics, and justice in health research with marginalised populations, especially through an interdisciplinary lens (public health and social science).