Research
RUTH PAYNE, BSc (Hons) (Swansea), MA (London) PhD (London)CHILD-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS IN ZAMBIARuth completed her PhD in January 2009, many congratulations! This page covers some of her work.
Funding: Economic and Social Research Council CASE Award (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/) Ruth is now working as a Freelance Consultant providing expert support for research, policy and programme design with and for children and young people and with local, national and international development agencies. This includes the provision of particular expertise in: child-centred, ethnographic & qualitative research; ethnographic research design; participatory & child-led methodologies; support for the development of research strategies and programmes; research methods training; research dissemination & developing more collaborative approaches to programme development with partner agencies and communities. You can download Ruth's CV. |
RESEARCH UPDATESPlease download any of our recent newsletters or older research updates. Many thanks to Millie Chomba who translated the newsletters into one of the local languages, Ichibemba.
RESEARCH STAKEHOLDERSPlease read more about the stakeholders and partnerships that Ruth has made throughout her research, through the links below.
NB: These organisations are research partners and are not all SCA funded partners. RUTH'S PREVIOUS RESEARCHRuth completed her MA in 2003. You can download her fascinating research: "Voices from the Street: Street Girl Life in Accra, Ghana" |
THE RESEARCH PROJECT LOGO
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RESEARCH SUMMARYChild-headed households (CHHs), in which adults are either absent or not fully-functioning in terms of providing for material and emotional needs of children, have received increasing attention and debate from academics and international development organisations. Growing out of HIV/AIDS and orphan crisis agendas, CHHs are frequently viewed as illustrative of extended family breakdown. However, the CHH concept lacks both theoretical depth and empirical substance. In particular, few studies have explored CHH member's perspectives of their daily lives qualitatively. Programmes 'on the ground' are also limited in scope, often targeted at a narrowly defined category of double orphan-headed households and assisted with short-term basic needs approaches. This research contributes to both theoretical debates and the development of CHH policy and programming. An Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, UK) CASE award to support collaborative research enabled initial calls for research on CHHs from SCA's founder, Fr Patrick Shanahan, to be realised. With additional funding from Misereor e. V Germany, a partnership between Royal Holloway, University of London and SCA was formed. Based upon a multi-trip research design across four urban and semi-rural communities between 2004 and 2008, the action research approach with wide-ranging stakeholders (e.g. CHH members; community leaders; local NGOs; government representatives; and policy-makers), resulted in a number of exciting innovations. These will be built upon during planned feedback activities, designed in consultation with stakeholders, which aim to disseminate information on CHH realities and consider the application of ethnographic methodological principles for intervention. Central to the multifaceted methodology used (including informal interviewing; focus groups; and workshops) was a case study approach, infused with ethnographic principles (observation; listening; and participation), with a core sub-sample of eleven CHHs. This research positions CHHs within the context of changing families, households and kinship patterns and highlights the diverse ways in which child household heads are reinventing pathways to adulthood by re-casting traditional roles and identities and creating strategies for their existence as social actors within household, street and community spaces. To see how research partnerships work, please download our research partnerships diagram. |
