Facilitating Participant Dialogues in Research with Norma Romm and Francis Akena Adyanga

Pulsating Practices: Constructionism in Action is a free webinar series hosted by the Taos Institute. In these interactive events, practitioners from around the world showcase ways to co-construct more positive and hopeful futures.

Facilitating Participant Dialogues in Research
With Norma Romm, South Africa and Francis Akena Adyanga, Uganda

October 8, 2025

We invite you to watch this webinar where Norma and Francis showcase how, as professional researchers, they have worked alongside research participants with the intent that fruitful constructions can be dialogically generated via the research process. The examples will indicate how research participants can participate in reconstructing ways of living together in relation to their expressed concerns.

The research setting that will constitute the prime example in this webinar was Francis and Norma’s effort to intervene in peace-building between farmers and pastoralists in the context of land disputes in Northern Uganda. Through focus group facilitation, participants came to discuss new options for their co-existence and were appreciative of how the research process contributed to this.

The webinar will also refer to another example in Northern Uganda where participants in a community were distressed by the practices of certain foreign-owned companies and mobilized resistance. As part of their dialoguing around their (relatively successful) efforts, they offered re-constructions of the notion of “development”. Finally, Francis and Norma will point to research in South Africa exploring Indigenous practices for advocating food sovereignty (as a counterpoint to globally dominant narratives around “food security”).

The webinar will invite audiences to reflect upon (and discuss) their roles as professional or lay researchers in shaping social and ecological life.

To join our global community and explore more social constructionist, relational, and appreciative approaches, please visit the Taos Institute Commons online community (free): www.taosinstitutecommons.com.

If you found this event valuable and want to support our mission of creating brighter futures, one conversation at a time, you are invited to make a donation at www.taosinstitute.net/donate