Conducting Research as Transformative Encounter in Cross-Cultural Collaborations

In this chapter, we describe our research team, sites and participants and the study’s 3-year critical participatory action research approach (CPAR) (Kemmis et al., The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Springer, Singapore, 2014). The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Springer, Singapore, 2014). This approach enabled participants and university researchers alike to engage as co-investigators and optimised consequence and sustainability through strategic research design, partnerships and communication and engagement. We explicitly link this CPAR approach to how we define community capacity in this study and to key considerations for building capacity within a CPAR framework. Research sites and communities are described in terms of: the three communities and the children and families in each community who took part; the community mentors who provided us with intercultural mediation and language translations in each community; and the early childhood stakeholders we interviewed. Descriptions of the study’s in-country research partners and external reference group, and the roles these people played in the study are also included. Accounts of data collection and analysis procedures are provided in relation to: dialogic encounters with children and their families and other community members and leaders in the participating communities; participant observations in commuities, artefact collection in communities; stakeholder interviews and document analysis of key policies and other related materials. Measures we took to ensure the study’s trustworthiness and ethics are explained. Throughout the chapter, we highlight and explore the complexities of conducting a cross-cultural study in an overseas context. Drawing on examples from our study, we show how we worked with these complexities in collaboration with our co-investigators, community mentors and research partners.