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This chapter brings to the forefront various challenges of engaging in both critical and participatory forms of knowledge building, in particular with queer and trans migrants with precarious status. Two scholars trace their previous experiences of engaging in participatory and critical research as well as their shift toward reflexive ways of knowing. This shift elicits the ways in which Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) may be used to build reflexive knowledge with and about queer and trans migrant communities, and in particular, LGBTQ refugees and MSM Latino migrants.

Through a review of the literature, this article seeks to outline and understand the evolution and extent of user–participant involvement in the existing library and information science (LIS) research to identify gaps and existing research approaches that might inform further methodological development in participant-oriented and design-based LIS research.

A scoping literature review of LIS research, from the 1960s onward, was conducted, assessing the themes and trends in understanding the user/participant within the LIS field. It traces LIS research from its early focus on information and relevancy to the “user turn”, to the rise of participatory research, especially design-based, as well as the recent inclusion of Indigenous and decolonial methodologies.

The literature review indicates that despite the reported “user turn”, LIS research often does not include the user as an active and equal participant within research projects.

The findings from this review support the development of alternative design research methodologies in LIS that fully include and involve research participants as full partners – from planning through dissemination of results – and suggests avenues for continuing the development of such design-based research. To that end, it lays the foundations for the introduction of a novel methodology, Action Partnership Research Design (APRD).

Chama microfinance models continue to be a safety net for many rural women in Kenya; however, their financial literacy remains largely unexplored. This study sought to explore the financial literacy of women entrepreneurs who are also members of Chama groups in rural Western Kenya, examine the specific indigenous practices and values that educators could draw upon to support and enhance the teaching of financial literacy to women, and also highlight the potential outcome of integrating indigenous knowledge and pedagogies to financial literacy. The study adopted critical participatory action research and African womanism methodology to centre learning on the experiences of rural Chama women. Based on in-depth interviews of six women in Western Kenya, the study found that the women's financial literacy can be explained and demonstrated through their relationships, connections and identity. On specific indigenous practices and methods the study found community engagement, centred learning and discovery learning, as relevant ways of engaging with the women. Integrating values, practices, and methods to inquire about the financial literacy from the Chama women's perspective cultivated an environment that encouraged mutual respect, sharing, participation and learning. Within the context of the findings, the study suggests that it is best to understand the women's financial literacy from their perspective. This study also contributes to knowledge on critical participatory action research and financial literacy from an Africana womanist perspective.

Evidence-based design (EBD) is traditionally limited to using empirical research findings based on randomized controlled trials. The purpose of this study is to explore stakeholder experiential knowledge as alternate credible evidence in redesigning health-care facilities for improved usability.

This research, based on critical participatory action research, involved a case study of redesign and post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of an emergency department (ED) at Holy Family Hospital, Techiman, Ghana. Observation, interviews and document analysis were used to collect data in the redesign and POE. The data was analyzed through directed content analysis.

Findings indicate that the redesign interventions, generated from stakeholder experiential knowledge, led to improved effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in the ED. This presents stakeholder experiential knowledge as alternate credible evidence in EBD. Furthermore, the POE revealed that open and flexible spatial arrangement, zoning care areas according to severity, and providing staff-support amenities are some redesign interventions for improving ED usability.

Compared to the hard and controlled nature of experimental research knowledge, the soft and fluid experiential knowledge of stakeholders could be more useful for health-care redesign process, especially in iteratively structuring design thinking and making choices.

This paper contributes to theory by validating and illustrating stakeholder experiential knowledge as credible evidence for EBD. Practically, it provides strategies, based on POE findings, for designing EDs to improve usability.

By all accounts, Cambodia has been a postconflict country for much of the last 15 years, stretching as far back at 1991, when the Paris Peace Accords proclaimed a truce between the Vietnamese-backed government and the Khmer Rouge. Subsequent attempts to put in place the desired political and governmental structures remained furtive in the midst of ongoing politicomilitary violence, which only subsided definitively in 1997. Many important institutions of governance and public sector management, destroyed by the ultra-radical Khmer Rouge regime, were only just starting to be rebuilt as recently as 2002.