Participation, inclusion and reflexivity in multi‐step (focus) group discussions

Abstract Top‐down, extractive research approaches are increasingly challenged in social studies, particularly by communities in the Global South. However, methodological stagnation persists as systemic academic pressures and a wider lack of social change hinder researchers from engaging in long‐term transformative studies. We discuss multi‐step context‐building focus group discussions (FGDs) within a ‘methodology as practice’ approach (Hui, 2023), emphasising collaboration, openness and integration of diverse approaches. Our discussion explores collaboration among researchers and participants and links elements of feminist, decolonial, and slow scholarship approaches. This paper draws on experiences applying a cross‐comparative approach (INITI8), which combines community‐based participant observation (CBPO) with FGDs in water security research in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Kenya. We critically discuss the tensions and resulting re‐work related to (1) the power of the elite both in our North–South collaboration and in collaboration with participant group leaders in the study sites; (2) socio‐spatial inclusion implications of our research design decisions in defining peri‐urban areas and engaging with illiterate women in rural areas; and (3) multi‐level reflexivity through the positionality of researchers, collaborative reflexivity in analysis and process, reflexivity of participants, and reflexivity on the overall study recognising its positioning within entrenched colonial epistemologies.