It has long been accepted that scholarly research in the social sciences will often (and should) involve research participants as partners in the research process – both to deliver and co-design research and to generate new knowledge together with the researchers [1].
Thus, for the Only Human project, we are partnering with Community Research experts, Centric. The Centric research is led by Dr Shaun Danquah (Founder and Director of Innovation), Dr Anthony Baker (Strategic Director, lead for our social sciences research) and Muhammed Rauf (Director of Business Development).
“Centric Community Research is a Research Hub developed, owned, and operated by the communities of Lambeth and Southwark. Informed by a history of racism and discrimination against people of colour and our lived experience of racial inequities that we still face to this day, we aspire to empower diverse communities of colour across the urban landscape.”
Centric’s role in the Only Human project is to lead the delivery of the community engagement and community research aspects of the project. Working with social science researchers and experts from within the community, they will design, recruit, consent, film, and analyse the data they collect from within the community audiences they belong to.
Centric will deliver a series of focus groups with members of their communities. These focus groups will be filmed, with consent from participants.
As Only Human is underpinned by the visual interpretation of creative assets and has a strong message around inclusion – inclusion of missing voices, inclusion of interesting and different views about genetics, it means that our focus groups will offer a platform for participants themselves to be included, be seen, and be heard.
It also means that specific communities will have a visible, publicly accessible record of their contribution to the research that they can share within their communities. Plus, as the filmed focus groups will sit within this website, participants will be able to see their contribution situated within the context of the contribution other public audiences have made, within the context of high-level film production companies, and within the context of the outcomes/impact of the research as a whole. This forms part of the benefit-sharing aspect of the research.
Over the last 20 years film has been used in social sciences research globally [2], both as research data and more recently as data for dissemination of research findings through participants’ perspectives [3]. This not only proffers the data for secondary analysis by other researchers, but also provides a springboard for new conversations about the project with new audiences. The film lives on as a method for continual reflection and imagination for new audiences who watch it. It has also been shown to generate and demonstrate new knowledge within communities who participate in being filmed [4]. For the research participants themselves, this opportunity to contribute towards enabling thought and reflection in others, is often a motivating factor for choosing to be filmed to start with [5]. ‘Being heard by others’, ‘having a platform’, ‘gaining visibility’ are all personally reaffirming reasons to participate [6],[7],[8]. This is a phenomenon well documented in audio-visual ethnography[9].
The Centric focus groups will be based around the films already appearing on this website.
[1] Rosemary A. Barbera (2008) Relationships and the Research Process: Participatory Action Research and Social Work, Journal of Progressive Human Services, 19:2, 140-159,
[2] Claudia M. Mitchell & Marni Sommer (2016) Participatory visual methodologies in global public health, Global Public Health, 11:5-6, 521-527
[3] Michela Franceschelli & Adele Galipò (2021) The use of film documentary in social science research: audio-visual accounts of the ‘migration crisis’ from the Italian island of Lampedusa, Visual Studies, 36:1, 38-50
[4] Tremblay C., Jayme BDO. (2015). Community knowledge co-creation through participatory video. Action Research, 13, 298–314
[5] Yang K. H. (2015). Voice, authenticity and ethical challenges: The participatory dissemination of youth-generated visual data over social media. Visual Studies, 30, 309–318
[6] Budig, K., et al. Photovoice and empowerment: evaluating the transformative potential of a participatory action research project. BMC Public Health 18, 432 (2018)
[7] Zoettl P. A. (2013). Images of culture: Participatory video, identity and empowerment. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16, 209–224
[8] Mandy Hughes (2021) Filmmaking as empirical research: working with people from refugee backgrounds to share stories about food, Visual Studies, 36:1, 11-24,
[9] Klaue, Léa, and Martin Zimper. 2020. Research Video: Audiovisual Ethnography and beyond. Dearq (26): 28-35