Building Policy/Research Relationships: Using Innovative Methodologies to Engage Ethnic Minority Women

This article describes innovative partnership building and research methodologies used in a project aimed at understanding the experiences of small groups of ethnic minority women in four localities in England. The focus was on understanding the role of paid and unpaid work in the women’s lives, their employment aspirations and experiences, any barriers they faced in accessing or progressing in employment, and their employment-related support needs. Instead of using standard survey,interview or focus group techniques, the research actively engaged a range of local partners in developing and delivering empowering and confidencebuilding opportunities for a small group of local ethnic minority women,using a range of art-based activities. Organised through weekly workshops,these provided an alternative way of engaging local authorities,voluntary organisations and ethnic minority women in the study, as well asadding new knowledge in an under-researched area. We describe aspectsof the project, and highlight some of the lessons learnt so far from thison-going study.