Exploring the benefits of participatory action research to a participatory data stewardship community project: the...

Traditional data and measures about health and well-being provide vital insights but do not provide context on the ways in which a community may want to see development in their local area. This article is based on a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project on well-being and data conducted with members of a community in Widnes, a town in the UK. We explore the usefulness of adapting a PAR methodology to develop a Participatory Data Stewardship (PDS) program at the community level.

Through repeated, semi-structured interviews, we tracked 15 Community Researchers' (CRs') experiences and perspectives of taking part in a PDS/PAR project. CRs were purposely recruited to primarily maximize diversity in gender, age, and socio-economic status, and interviewed before training, after training, and after fieldwork. We used thematic analysis to explore benefits and challenges, along with their expectations and experiences, at each stage of the project.

Four main themes emerged from interviews with CRs on their expectations and experiences: (1) the role of CRs' motivation in taking part on their perceptions of project impact, (2) the role and development of confidence in CRs' perceptions of their own success, (3) the importance of community building through an appreciation of diversity, and (4) the value in developing CR agency by putting participatory process at each stage of the project.

The findings illustrate that taking a PAR approach to the design of a PDS project around well-being and data shows potential for problematizing datafication through engaging local communities, developing their research skills, confidence and agency, and designing a data system that can empower community voice. This article addresses a gap in the literature on the feasibility of taking a PAR approach to the implementation of PDS. Future research should build on this study to explore the conditions for successful PAR in the context of other PDS projects.