This article presents the Zapar project, a community-commanded initiative developed in collaboration with the Atacameño Community of Toconao (northern Chile), which repositions remote sensing (RS) technologies through Indigenous governance and ethical frameworks. By embedding the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance—Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics—into every stage of the workflow, the project transforms RS from an extractive documentation tool into a participatory, culturally grounded practice. UAV-based photogrammetry, spatial modeling, and virtual documentation were codesigned with community members to support Indigenous-led heritage management, memory activation, and territorial governance. Beyond technical innovation, this project offers a procedural, epistemological, and ethical-governance advance in archaeological practice. Procedurally, it demonstrates how the CARE Principles can guide RS workflows through shared authority and iterative validation (1) epistemologically, by integrating Indigenous narratives that redefine site interpretation; and (2) ethically, by ensuring data sovereignty and long-term stewardship of digital heritage within the community. The Zapar project therefore provides a replicable framework for decolonizing digital archaeology, demonstrating that technological innovation can coexist with Indigenous leadership, collaborative ethics, and sustainable heritage governance.

Children’s growth extends beyond gains in height and weight: it includes non-physical achievements. This paper reviews the research conducted by the International Union for Nutritional Sciences Task Force ‘Towards a Multidimensional Approach to Child Growth’, which developed a Multidimensional Index of Child Growth (MICG) framed within a capability- and human-rights- based conceptualisation of child growth across interconnected dimensions, including physical health, love and care, mental wellbeing, participation, autonomy, mobility, and safety. Qualitative research in Bangladesh and southeastern Tanzania informed the operationalisation of the MICG, showing that caregivers understand child growth as a multidimensional capability set distributed across children, caregivers, and households. Quantitatively, we prototyped the MICG using Young Lives Survey data from Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. The MICG reveals patterns of deprivation not captured by anthropometric indicators alone, such as compounded shortfalls in education, mobility, and mental wellbeing among rural girls in Peru, despite similar physical growth profiles. Regression and quantile analyses indicate that community participation in the design of WASH programmes is associated with higher multidimensional achievements, particularly among the most deprived children. To bridge observed achievements and unrealised potential, we extend the MICG using a Bayesian stochastic-frontier approach to estimate context-specific capability distributions and identify children at risk of being left behind. Finally, we propose a spiderweb growth chart for monitoring multidimensional child growth, complementing WHO anthropometric charts. Overall, the MICG offers an equity-sensitive tool for evaluating nutrition interventions, strengthening child growth surveillance, and advancing the Sustainable Development Goal commitment to leave no child behind.

Knowledge synthesis involves bringing together findings from individual research studies to answer a specific question or explore a particular topic, often at a global level. People with lived or living experience of health conditions or of accessing healthcare services (PWLE), such as patients and their families or friends, can provide valuable perspectives throughout this process. PWLE involvement can help shape the design and conduct of a knowledge synthesis to better reflect real-world concerns through a process called patient engagement. Patient engagement is the meaningful and active involvement of PWLE throughout the research process. While previous research shows that PWLE can contribute meaningfully when appropriate supports are in place, there is limited practical guidance on how to enact patient engagement in knowledge syntheses. This tutorial paper aims to guide researchers and PWLE who would like to engage in knowledge syntheses together. Building on existing research, our team (comprised of PWLE, researchers, and an academic librarian) shares lessons we have learned from working together throughout the stages of a knowledge synthesis. We present considerations for successful patient engagement when research teams are: (1) planning to engage, (2) recruiting PWLE, (3) establishing roles and rapport, (4) supporting capacity development, (5) conducting the knowledge synthesis, and (6) mobilizing findings. We also identify 12 common barriers to patient engagement and offer strategies to address them, alongside recommendations for integrating PWLE across every stage of the knowledge synthesis process.

This article explores Guerrilla Public History as an alternative methodology to reclaim historical narratives of the oppressed, whose history has been stripped away by violence. The author draws on regional guerrilla combat methods, Paulo Freire’s emancipatory action research and Frantz Fanon’s liberatory violence to frame this new methodology of doing public history. Based on previous examples of public history projects that the author carried within academic institutions in the global North, the article proposes this new radical methodology, applicable on the margins of the institutional framework where research is conducted within a university and/or a museum, in order to reclaim the land, call for reparation, and address injustice. At a time when funding has been grotesquely exposing its power over academic integrity, artistic expression, and freedom of speech in anything related to Palestine, this article calls on institutionally affiliated researchers to be honest about the limits of their work’s impact, and for those who wish to show their true support, to be “Muchtabek” and to act as allies of the people who will lead the revolution, rather than commodifying their struggle.

Older adults living with HIV face intersecting challenges related to aging, stigma, and healthcare navigation. Arts-based research (ABR) has the potential to support resilience and well-being in this population. To explore how participation in ABR supports older adults living with HIV in terms of empowerment, self-expression, and social connection. A participatory qualitative study was conducted with adults aged 50+ living with HIV. Participants engaged in creative workshops incorporating word mapping, visual arts, and storytelling. Data were collected through group discussions and analysis of art work. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify key themes in participants’ experiences. Participation in ABR fostered empowerment, self-understanding, and community connection. Four themes emerged: (1) Reclaiming narratives – challenging stereotypes of HIV and aging; (2) Creative resilience – expressing emotions and promoting healing; (3) Community and connection – reducing isolation and fostering belonging; and (4) Personal and artistic growth – skill development and therapeutic engagement. Creative expression enabled participants to communicate emotions difficult to verbalize, strengthening self-esteem and social bonds. ABR offers a valuable approach for promoting resilience, self-expression, and collective empowerment among older adults living with HIV. Incorporating creative engagement into HIV care may enhance psychosocial well-being and community connection in this population.

Combining key elements of classical and constructivist approaches to representation, this article suggests a novel reconceptualisation of political representation. Developed through participatory agency research with people in socio-economically difficult situations and anchored in people’s lived experiences and sense-making processes, the representative relationship is redefined as a pragmatic and solution-oriented partnership between representatives and the represented. Expanding the classical Pitkinian model, it enables representatives to be better informed about how to address peoples’ concerns. In doing so, it advances the notion of dynamic political representation, where the represented are not passive principals but active partners in decision-making. While we uphold the classical principle of acting in the interests of the represented, we reconceptualise these interests as dynamic and continuously evolving – a perspective consistent with constructivist thought. This research aligns with scholarly calls to rethink representation and revise the roles of the representatives and the represented, fostering meaningful and effective engagement. Our empirical findings highlight the urgency of reform for people in socio-economically difficult situations and underscores the broader relevance of these insights, in a context of increasing legitimacy deficits and rising discontent with current modes of representation in contemporary democracies.

Expanding crop diversity is essential to address the imminent challenges of agriculture. This is especially true for organic farming, which relies on locally adapted species and varieties. Recently, participatory research approaches have emerged as effective means to support this endeavour. In this study, we collaborated with several stakeholders in the Lyon region, France, to evaluate three minor species related to common wheat (Triticum aestivum subsp. aestivum): einkorn (Triticum monococcum subsp. monococcum), emmer (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum) and spelt (Triticum aestivum subsp. spelta (L.) Thell). First, we assessed the agronomic characteristics of each species, highlighting a distinction of einkorn that was associated with high tillering, high protein content, a long phenological cycle, small kernels and low relative yields. Second, we compared intra-species variabilities, revealing greater variation in emmer and spelt. Lastly, outcomes of the participatory approach, including testing adaptive methods and fostering collective learning, may interest other participatory research groups.

This article explores the potentials of intergenerational collaboration as a long-term research strategy for shifting social and political imaginaries around climate change. It brings together academics and youth researchers who began working together on the Climate Change and Me project in 2014, along with colleagues who joined them for a public panel, book launch and exhibition ten years later. Climate Change and Me was the first large-scale study of climate change education applying a child- and youth-framed methodology, and has led to numerous exhibitions, curriculum resources, digital platforms, and publications co-created with children and young people. This article gives voice to young people’s reflections on the impact of their involvement with this project a decade on, drawing on the transcript of a public panel conversation at the Design Hub Gallery in Naarm (Melbourne). It explores how young people’s early experiences as child researchers have intersected with political, social and educational change across time, while opening new conversations with intergenerational colleagues working in related areas of climate justice education, activism and research.

While normative theories of participatory democracy and practical experiences of participatory research share a common democratic commitment, the two fields have emerged and to date exist in isolation from each other. This article bridges this divide and asks what participatory democracy and participatory research can learn from one another. It argues that participatory democracy can learn how to realize its own democratic ideals within its research practice and participatory research can deepen its normative commitment by connecting its practices to a larger participatory vision. The article illustrates this by engaging with three examples in which participatory democracy researchers conduct participatory research projects. It finally reflects critically on how the shared participatory commitments of both fields can be realized within the neoliberal university embedded in competitive market economies.

This paper, co-authored by two adult academics and three young researchers aged 11 to 16, investigates the authors’ collective experiences in a participatory research project about growing up multilingual with Chinese heritage and migration background, where race and racism emerged as key themes. Drawing on critical dialectical pluralism and the concept of “reflexivities of discomfort,” we explore how co-constructing research with children and young people can enrich the research process. Despite the intricate and often opaque nature of discussing racism, especially anti-Asian racism, with children from migration backgrounds, this study advocates for participatory research as a critical tool for uncovering these complexities, paving the way for more open and meaningful conversations. In collaboration with young researchers, we reevaluate the role of research and researchers in discussing racism, (de)construct children as experts of their racialized experiences, and imagine the future of researching racism with children through what we call “collective reflexivity”—a practice of open discussions that highlight young people’s positionalities, experiences, and insights. Through practices that protect individuality and value personal experience, our work makes a methodological contribution by offering “collective reflexivity” and co-authorship as a pathway that ensures children are not viewed as “representatives,” but valued for their positionalities, encouraging more engaged and critical conversations on race and racism with them.

The devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the missing voices of families and residents in long-term care (LTC) decision-making and policy processes. Family and resident councils constitute one method of raising these voices, but there is currently a gap in evidence of how to promote the effectiveness of these councils. We conducted five focus groups and two interviews with LTC home leaders, residents, family members, and advocates in British Columbia using a participatory approach integrating knowledge-users throughout the research process. Using a framework analysis, we found modifiable (communication, structure, recruitment/engagement, council leadership, culture/attitudes, and resources/supports) and non-modifiable factors (medical complexity of residents and short lengths of stay) affecting council effectiveness. We discuss strategies implemented by knowledge-users to address modifiable effectiveness factors and construct a preliminary tool (a 35-question survey) that operationalizes and identifies areas that can increase council effectiveness in practice to ensure that their voices are heard in LTC decision making.