SOME NOTES ON RESEARCH ACCOUNTABILITY

I remember the very day my academic career turned the corner. It was 1984. I was a graduate student, sitting in the Cedar-Riverside Project Area Committee (PAC) office to interview Tim Mungavan about this amazing Minneapolis neighbourhood that had instituted a radically grass-roots community-controlled redevelopment program. Tim, the group's architect/organizer, leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk, and looked me sternly in the eye. He said: "We have students and reporters coming through all the time, asking neighbourhood people to give their time and answer their questions. And we don't get so much as a copy of a paper from them. If I agree to talk with you, then I want you to agree that you'll give us a copy of the paper you write. (Stoecker, 1994:25i) Research Accountability is the moral and professional duty of translating, reporting (feedback) and disseminating the advances and conclusions of the research/ evaluation we carry out to the participants involved in the communities, particularly those results that have policy implications. Research Accountability also includes the moral and professional duty of disseminating results to other professionals in the academic field; although this will not be the focus of discussion here (this is already more institutionalised through academic journals and conferences). The first meaning though Research Accountability with the communities - is less populous and less spread out, although we think, equally important. As pointed out in 1978 at the Subordination of Women Conference (SOWii) held in Brighton, England: Failure to give due credit to informants even when this is politically possible... is all too common, as is the tendency to disseminate research results only within narrow academic and policy-making circles... The Conference recommended much closer contact between researchers and local women's groups, women's research groups, and trade unions... In relation to research budgets, SOW also noted that: all research project budgets [must] include a sum of money for translating the final report into the main language of the area [of] research... [and] for research findings to be written up in an accessible manner... [and for] returning material from research projects in the form of education materials SOW also contemplated that: Wherever possible research findings should be discussed with the people from whom the information was collected particularly if they belong to social groups normally denied access to knowledge permitting them a greater understanding of their own situation. Their criticisms and dissensions should be recorded in the final report. We can ask ourselves the following questions at the beginning of our research/ evaluation intervention. When we research/evaluate: do we give feedback to the participants? If so, how is this feedback performed? When is it done? Is it during the research or just at the end of the research? When we disseminate results: who are the receptors? With which methods do we do it? In written, with images? Do we take into account illiterate people in this sense? In which language do we communicate?

Do we take into account the different languages spoken in a context? Do we translate the process and results of the study, even if it is only the research/ evaluation summary? Are we including in the initial design of the research/evaluation a time for the feedback and a time for translation (if necessary) and dissemination? Research Accountability is not only a moral obligation but also a methodological one. Reporting back serves to triangulate our research/evaluation results and check they are contextually adequate. Again, Randy Stoecker (1994) reminds us that: [When] analyzing the data, if it cannot be done collaboratively, should at least be done with strict accountability to the community. One of the most effective methods is to present or show rough drafts of the analysis to community members, who can then add, subtract, and modify the findings, and even interject new data that seeing a draft of the results reminds them of. Even in my graduate school research of the CedarRiverside neighborhood, I quickly learned that I got more information from peoples reactions to papers I wrote about the neighborhood than I did from the original interviews

Stoecker, Randy. 1994. Defending Community: The Struggle for Alternative Redevelopment in Cedar-Riverside. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ii http://www.ids.ac.uk/UserFiles/File/publications/classics/bulletin10_3.pdf (20/01/08)