This article describes an improvisatory or ‘no method’ research approach in socio-ecological sustainability in two rural Ugandan communities. A team of multidisciplinary researchers purposed to understand how rural community members make sense of their role in, and relationship with, the environment.

The International Journal of Qualitative Methods sheds light on pertinent issues regarding community engagement in assessing needs of the community, thus leading to appropriate adult learning and education outcomes. Participatory Action Learning and Research have been established in almost all qualitative research approaches, with acceptable results. However, this journal opens this lens of effective and impactful community participation by understanding historical data collection, which was very much led by the global North, and now this team of researchers have explored home-grown socio-ecological methodologies to data collection that may prove even more effective in the global south, especially in Africa, hence the term ‘Africanization of research.’

It is experimental research that allows the communities to assess their own areas of interest and come up with their own approaches to collect data from an individual, family, community, and societal levels without being ‘boxed in’ within scientifically proven methodologies that have been developed over the years. The communities therefore have more ownership and decision-making power to contribute towards sustainable impact and implementation of interventions. This particular piece focuses on adaptive farming and agricultural needs of the communities in Uganda.

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References

Dr Twine Bananuka, Mia Perry, Anthony Kadoma. (2023). Research without methods: An experiment in socio-ecological sustainability research with rural communities. International Journal of Qualitative methods, 13.