Stephanie Enloe, Rachel Bezner Kerr, Sidney Madsen and Noelle LaDue shared their work with SFHC this October at the 7th Annual Sociology of Development Conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During a section of the conference entitled “Participatory Research for Food Security Among Smallholder Farming Households in Africa and Latin America,” Madsen and LaDue’s presentation covered the co-production of knowledge through semi-structured interviews as part of the Carasso project. Bezner Kerr and Enloe presented their work on agroecological pest management during the same session.

The conference’s stated purpose was to explore obstacles to global development from diverse perspectives. To paraphrase a slide from Madsen and LaDue’s presentation, there is room in development work to demystify science, acknowledge the co-production of knowledge, and challenge who can generate scientific knowledge. Participatory research helps balance scientific rigor with accessibility, and ensure that development projects engage with the needs of the community as they articulate them–not solely as they are interpreted by outsiders.