Participatory Research in Music

Do you want to work with other organisations to learn from each other and make change? If so, you probably want to know a bit more about Participatory Research and what it means in the Music Industries...

Participatory Research describes various collaborative strategies, in and outside of academia, where the ambition is to engage with people and organisations outside your usual domain to work together and draw on diverse knowledge and understanding. This can be described as a move from doing work “for the benefit of '' another group, to working “with” another group in order to create something of mutual benefit. In the context of academia, this is as a move from a top down approach towards a more egalitarian, and possibly utopian, process where everyone involved has a voice and is able to both influence the research processes and benefit from the outcomes. There is no single definition of what counts as Participatory Research and it is interpreted differently depending on the context and the people involved.

We have focused here on Participatory Research which engages with the importance of understanding the needs and peculiarities of different groups within the music industries and Higher Education in order to aid collaboration and avoid some of the pitfalls of doing this kind of research. Our aim is to encourage Participatory Research which embraces shared ownership and mutual benefits of new knowledge and outcomes.