Women's empowerment and good governance through community radio : best experiences for an action research process

French version available in IDRC Digital Library: Radio communautaire pour l'empouvoirment des femmes et la bonne gouvernance : meilleures expériences pour une recherche-actionSpanish version available in IDRC Digital Library: Radio comunitaria para el empoderamiento de las mujeres y la gobernabilidad democrática : mejores experiencias para una investigación acción participativ

Institutioning and community radio. A comparative perspective

In recent years, designers have pointed to the role of institutioning, the way in which design processes and institutions are mutually shaped, constrained and enabled. This paper seeks to expand this discussion to the field of grassroots communities, a concept that enlightens the intersection between geographic communities and communities of interests/practice. The research draws on empirical work exploring the different experiences in four distinct socio-cultural and institutional contexts of Uganda, Ireland, Portugal and Romania to investigate how institutioning relate to the design of a new form of community radio based on an innovative technology. It also explores what are the practices that designers and grassroots communities use to manage and navigate potential constraints of institutioning, and offers comparative insight into how institutioning influences the design outcome. Using the concept of institutioning, we will show how, in this interaction, the grassroots communities in the making overcome the "space vs interest" dichotomy, and how institutions as well as communities play a role in shaping - and are potentially shaped by - the design process

Radio comunitaria para el empoderamiento de las mujeres y la gobernabilidad democrática : mejores experiencias para una investigación acción participativa

Versión en inglés disponible en la Biblioteca Digital del IDRC: Women's empowerment and good governance through community radio : best experiences for an action research processVersión en francés disponible en la Biblioteca Digital del IDRC: Radio communautaire pour l'empouvoirment des femmes et la bonne gouvernance : meilleures expériences pour une recherche-actio

From ‘animation’ to encounter: Community radio, sociability and urban life in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Drawing upon ethnographic research on community radio in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, this article argues that tracking production practices outside of the studio allows researchers to better capture radio’s entanglements with everyday urban life. This spatial reconsideration mirrors a conceptual move beyond community media labels and normative criteria, towards a privileging of context. To illustrate both points, the article centres around ‘animation,’ the practice of enlivening social situations. Animation is central to community radio in Abidjan, but ‘animateurs’ also practise their trade in a multitude of venues and events around the city. Following animation’s movements between on- and off-air provides an understanding of how community radio is assembled as a porous ‘micro-public’, and insight into the particular kind of sociability that it produces. The article shows that while this sociability is tinged with the quest for status and social capital, it is mostly characterized by indeterminacy, and valued for the unforeseen encounters it can foster

Linking Community, Radio, and Action Research on Climate Change: Reflections on a Systemic Approach

This article reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of using Participatory Action Research (PAR) with community radio broadcasters in southern Ghana to investigate the impacts of climate change. Through a detailed outline of the methodological approach employed in this initiative as well as the findings that it produced, we consider how action research might serve to reveal the power relations, systemic drivers of vulnerability, and opportunities for sustainable action for social change related to climate impacts. As co?facilitators of this process based in a Northern research institution, we reflect upon the challenges, limitations and benefits of the approach used in order to identify potential areas for improvement and to understand how the dynamics of this partnership shaped collaboration. We also discuss how employing a systemic approach to action research helped to provide insights into the interactions between the physical and environmental impacts of climate change and related systems such as land tenure and agricultural production. A systemic approach to PAR, we argue, lends itself especially well to analysis of climate change adaptation and resilience, both of which are embedded within complex systems of institutions, assets, individuals and structures, and therefore not appropriate for narrow or one?dimensional analyses. Finally, we consider the specific contributions and challenges that engaging community radio as a research partner may offer to investigations on climate change