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Scaled, citizen-led, and
public qualitative research: A
framework for citizen social
science
Amirah Amirrudin
Singapore Management University, Singapore
Nicholas Harrigan
Macquarie University, Australia
Ijlal Naqvi
Singapore Management University, Singapore
Abstract
We propose a framework for citizen social science that brings together three
reinforcing elements of a research project – scale, citizen-leadership, and publicness –
to improve qualitative research. Our framework was born out of necessity; a desire to
involve ordinary citizens, in researching public issues, with limited funding. We illustrate
the application of our framework using insights from research we have led, involving
first, a series of qualitative studies of state and civil society organizations working on
community engagement by three separate years of public policy students; and second, a
qualitative study on the system for processing salary and injury disputes for low-waged
migrant workers in Singapore conducted by over 100 volunteers and activists. Drawing
on a review of the literature and our own experiences, we speak to the advantages
and trade-offs of adopting this approach and suggest practical methods for conducting
citizen social science.
Keywords
Citizen social science, participatory research, problem-solving sociology, public
sociology, qualitative methods
Corresponding author:
Ijlal Naqvi, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Singapore Management University, 90 Stamford Rd,
Level 4, Singapore 178903, Singapore.
Email: ijlalnaqvi@smu.edu.sg
1056057CSI0010.1177/00113921211056057Current SociologyAmirrudin et al.
research-article2021
Article
2 Current Sociology 00(0)
Introduction
Our framework for scaled, citizen-led, and public qualitative research is a way of con-
ducting public sociological interventions as a collective enterprise (Collins et al., 2017)
involving large numbers of non-professional researchers in researching an important
issue, and, through this, improving scientific knowledge and empowering non-profes-
sional researchers. We are motivated by both our personal experience doing qualitative
research on public issues, and our normative orientation toward the public mission of
universities to educate for citizenship and public service while inculcating the scientific
norms of free and open debate (Calhoun, 2011).
Our framework builds on the growing body of work under the label of citizen social
science, which, similar to the more established citizen science approach to natural sci-
ences (see, for example, Bonney et al., 2009), prioritizes the ‘greater hands-on involve-
ment of lay people in scientific research: doing it, designing it, understanding it and
debating it’ (Richardson, 2016: 207). However, in contrast to the dominance of positivist
epistemology in the natural sciences which is the basis for citizen science, citizen social
science draws on hermeneutic and critical perspectives that challenge the objectivity of
scientific knowledge and highlight the necessity of the human role in knowledge produc-
tion (see, for example, Giddens, 1993). Citizen social science presents an opportunity to
bring citizens into the knowledge production process, in service of democratizing and
emancipatory ideals (Purdam, 2014). In this role, the researcher is encouraged to look
beyond data analysis and scientific writing as their only contributions of value, and
directly engage with the citizens who are both the research subjects and co-producers of
knowledge (Bonhoure et al., 2019). Putting citizen social science into practice is chal-
lenging, and there are potential issues of data integrity, the ethics of engaging volunteers,
and mobilizing a large research team (Heiss and Matthes, 2017). Citizen social science
shares the twin objectives of the problem-solving sociology agenda, in which the research
generates new scientific knowledge as well as contributing to the solution of the social
problems in question (Prasad, 2018). As with utopian co-production, we seek to expand
the ‘cramped space of the possible’ for academic research (Bell and Pahl, 2018). We
present our framework of scaled, public, and citizen-led qualitative research as a practi-
cal response to the challenges of putting citizen social science into action.
Literature review
Scaled Research. We define scaled qualitative research as research that (1) involves a
sizable research team and (2) conducts a substantial amount of interviews and/or other
fieldwork. A scaled research team has the advantage of a greater capacity to gather and
analyze data. We are oriented toward research teams engaged in shared data collection
and analysis on a single project rather than producing a collection of individually
authored studies linked by topic or approach (see, for example, Auyero, 2015; Burawoy
et al., 2000). In traditional qualitative research, scaling up is done by either a lead
researcher who finds funding for a team of graduate research assistants (Blee, 2012;
Lareau, 2011; Newman, 1999), or a single researcher who finds time and funding for
extended periods of fieldwork (Hoang, 2016; Rao, 2020). One exception to these
Amirrudin et al. 3
traditional approaches to scaling is Grazian (2008), who used 811 firsthand narrative
accounts by undergraduate students in his research.
Scaling has multiple potential benefits. Scaling can serve the traditional hallmarks of
excellence in qualitative research – attentiveness to detail, clarity, or tightness of argu-
ment (Lamont and White, 2008) – by adding depth to the cases one is studying through
more fieldwork by teams of researchers. Depth is distinguished from an attempt to legiti-
mate qualitative research using quantitative logics of sample size; depth is produced by
capturing ‘high-quality data’ and ‘trenchant data analysis’ (Lareau and Rao, 2016). This
means detailed attention to social interaction by several sets of eyes and ears, and through
fieldnotes, reflections, and memos which are subject to ongoing scrutiny by the research
team. Scaling supports a sequential approach to qualitative research involving literal
replication, in which like cases are examined, as well as theoretical replication, in which
the same mechanisms of interest are observed in different circumstances, and allows the
researcher to achieve saturation (i.e. when observations no longer yield new knowledge)
while sampling for range across a greater variety of situations (Small, 2009). We use
scale to enable us to make stronger logical claims about processes, and not to imitate
quantitative logics of statistical inference. Scale also enables one to make a more com-
pelling ontological claim that a certain phenomenon exists, which is especially important
when the evidence is contested by other policy actors or when systematic sampling of the
targeted population is not possible.
Conducting research with a large team does bring trade-offs compared to solo qualita-
tive research. Most scaling of research requires significant investment in supervision in the
form of recruitment of researchers, training them, establishing standards and protocols,
checking the quality of data collection or analysis, and maintaining communication. In
addition, the creation of such systems can generate its own inertia, meaning that flexibility
is sacrificed as the scale increases. Small (2009) suggests that a scaled-up research team
may risk resembling a survey, particularly if the lead researchers disengage from the field.
Citizen-led. We define citizen-led research as research in which non-professionals (1)
fill the role of co-researchers, participating in the project design, data collection, analy-
sis, and writing and (2) are empowered to use the research for their benefit. We note that
our definition differs from that used in traditional participatory or action research, even
as we draw on those rich literatures. In our definition, non-professional researchers need
not be study subjects or community members, but can be students, volunteers, or any
interested non-professional researchers.1 Note also that our definition requires non-pro-
fessionals to be engaged in design, analysis, and writing, and not only data collection.
Citizen-led research can provide low-cost scaling, through involving volunteer, non-
professional researchers, in a similar way to citizen science in the natural sciences. In
addition, citizen-led research can empower subaltern perspectives by incorporating them
into the research process; improve research quality by having team members inform and
crosscheck the design, analysis, and study conclusions (Lamont and White, 2008; Morrill
et al., 2005); build a scientifically literate public; and further normative goals of demo-
cratic organization and self-actualization through participation as equals in the research
team (Freire, 2000).
There are at least three main approaches to citizen-led research in the academic litera-
ture: traditional participatory research, action research, and citizen science.
4 Current Sociology 00(0)
In traditional participatory research, research subjects contribute beyond their typical
role as passive respondents by being co-researchers, shaping both the design and research
outcomes (Kral, 2014). In addition, benefit from the research is conferred onto study
participants (Israel et al., 2012; Kral, 2014). This approach includes allowing marginal-
ized groups to gain new competencies and have their voices heard (Russo, 2012); contri-
bution of local knowledge by marginalized groups; improved investigation of context,
meaning, and dynamism of social action (Bergold and Thomas, 2012); and a general
increase in research effectiveness (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995).
Action Research (Reason and Bradbury, 2007) emphasizes participation by the
research subjects, or at least members of the community being studied, with an addi-
tional emphasis on social action and collective self-experimentation by subjects during
the research process.
Citizen science is a method of enquiry associated with the natural sciences, and
involves the public helping to collect and/or analyze large amounts of data (Bhattacharjee,
2005). Citizen science projects aim to educate citizens, who are non-professional
researchers, on the subject matter or research methodology (or both) through their par-
ticipation (Bonney et al., 2009). As with scaling, and similar to peer research (Kelly
et al., 2020), the investment in training non-professionals for participatory research can
be significant. In addition, participation involves ceding some control to a larger group
or democratic process, and that takes time. Non-professional researcher involvement
can, depending on their skill sets, experience, and supervision, lead to uneven quality of
data or analysis.
Public Research. We define public research as research that (1) aims to promote dia-
logue, (2) among relevant non-academic publics, potentially including civil society,
policy makers, and business, (3) often about values or goals that are not automatically
shared and that thus are politically salient (Burawoy, 2005). Public research can intrinsi-
cally motivate professional and non-professional researchers through the potential to
better society. Public research promises such betterment by focusing on issues that are
relevant to society but understudied, or that involve marginalized groups without the
power or social status to raise their concerns.
The idea of ‘publicness’, within sociology, was revived in Michael Burawoy’s (2005)
presidential address to the American Sociological Association where he called for sociol-
ogy to return to its initial purpose of ‘taking knowledge back to those from whom it
came, making public issues out of private troubles, and thus regenerating sociology’s
moral fiber’. Since then, there has been much debate about public sociology’s impor-
tance and its use in improving societal welfare (Brady, 2004; Clawson, 2007). Public
research intends to create knowledge on topics that affect the public so as to empower the
public to engage in deliberative discussions. Different ways in which we can evaluate the
possible impacts of public research include audience engagements, feedback from
research subjects, and policy outcomes (Collins et al., 2017).
Burawoy’s call for public sociology to reach a broader audience and improve people’s
lives is one that many sociologists are sympathetic toward, but the lack of ‘concrete
proposals for practice’ can confound the would-be public sociologist (Brady, 2004). Our
framework is intended to contribute a viable model of practice which can serve the goals
of public sociology.
Amirrudin et al. 5
Engaging in public rather than purely academic research can have potential trade-offs
for the academic researcher. Public research often finds itself advocating for or against
changes to existing public perceptions or legislation, and this is different to academic
research objectives, such as creating generalizable knowledge. This can slow the aca-
demic publication process, and there is the danger that such public research just does not
‘count’ for appointment, tenure, promotions, or national and international research
leagues tables, although there is a growing role for ‘impact’ in career assessments for
United Kingdom and, potentially, Australian researchers.
As can be seen in Figure 1, the three elements – scale, citizen-leadership, and public-
ness – can have a reinforcing synergy. These three elements each have benefits and trade-
offs and the combination of elements can enhance the benefits of the others while
mitigating their trade-offs: (1) participation can help achieve scale through providing
low-cost volunteer researchers; (2) public research can help achieve participation by
motivating the efforts of volunteer researchers; and (3) scale educates participants on the
issues, bringing more evidence to light, and thus promoting informed public discussion.
Further examples of prominent studies are listed in Figure 2.
Our experiences with research that is scaled, citizen-led,
and public
This next section illustrates how all three elements of our framework – scaled, participa-
tory, and public – were applied in two research studies we undertook: (1) an undergradu-
ate course on participatory practices of community engagement among state and civil
Figure 1. Self-reinforcing motivations of scaled, citizen-led, and public qualitative research.
6 Current Sociology 00(0)
society organizations, and (2) a collaboration between university academics, students,
and nongovernmental organization (NGO) volunteers to study the wages and injury dis-
putes of low-waged migrant workers.
Our two research studies engaged with questions of democracy and the welfare of
migrant workers, topics which lie at ‘the limits of open and consultative government’ in
Singapore.2 Our research took into account this political context by engaging in private
consultations with government officials before, during, and after the research took place
to navigate the associated risks. We did so to avoid the research effort being shut down,
and positioned the research so that might have a policy impact.
Case study 1: public policy task forces on community engagement
One of us led three semester-long courses (Public Policy Task Forces) of 13–20 students
between 2015–2017 with the dual pedagogical objectives of teaching qualitative research
methods while studying community engagement in Singapore. The courses were explic-
itly presented to students as being participatory, with Fung and Wright’s (2003) empow-
ered participatory governance as the touchstone for both the class’s organization and the
analysis of the civil society organizations which were studied.
Motivation. Studying community engagement in Singapore appealed because of the con-
trast between the egalitarian and emancipatory ideals of bottom-up participation and the
city-state’s technocratic approach to governance and open disavowal of liberal
Figure 2. A Venn diagram of the different types of qualitative research, with examples.
Amirrudin et al. 7
democracy (Chua, 2017). That state and civil society organizations so actively embraced
participation in this context presented a compelling intellectual puzzle. The public issues
in which a range of participatory practices were being employed centered on community
engagement, civil society, and poverty, all of which were issues that Singaporean society
and academics were engaged (see, for example, Loh et al., 2017) and thus attractive to
students as well. The instructor’s goal was to connect to their new home through this
fascinating topic, fulfill their teaching obligations, and take steps toward producing pub-
lishable research through the accumulation of the necessary data and by establishing
their own familiarity with the field. Almost as an afterthought, the instructor decided to
internalize the participatory practices we were studying in the student research team
itself, and this decision proved vital to the research effort as well as for the pedagogy of
the class.
Method
Scaled. Mobilizing a research team of 13–20 undergraduates so as to both train them
on qualitative research and systematically collect and analyze data presented a logisti-
cal challenge. Students were organized into thematic as well as functional sub-teams
with distinct responsibilities such as ensuring the consistent application of codes for
our field notes, editing the final report, and preparing and delivering the final presenta-
tion. Every student was required to do weekly fieldwork and to produce three analytic
memos during the semester. The class met for a single 3-hour session each week, during
which the students worked in their sub-teams with the instructor (and occasionally edi-
tors) circulating among them. Periodically, a sub-team would present on its progress to
the entire group. Fieldwork was conducted in teams of 3–5 who jointly produced 2000
words or more of field notes (within 24 hours) per field visit. In addition, students were
required to produce ‘notes on notes’ for every field exercise in which they documented
their reflections, concerns, or persistent questions. The instructor participated actively in
the fieldwork and contributed to the field notes accordingly. Meeting in preparation for
fieldwork was usually an opportunity to engage with students informally and get them
to share their opinions and observations. We used a cloud-based qualitative research
software (Dedoose) which facilitated multiple students accessing the same documents,
reviewing coding choices, and contributing to our analysis. Our university supported the
course with $2000–4500 per semester for student transport, qualitative research software
(Dedoose, 2018), and catering for the final presentation event. We also benefited from
an ‘Active Learning Classroom’ designed to facilitate groupwork and student-centered
learning.
Citizen-led. The task force was citizen-led in that it internalized the norms of participa-
tory democracy within a research team of undergraduate non-professional researchers.
Students were informed of this in the first week of the class when we read Fung and
Wright (2003), and we discussed what it meant to internalize the empowered participa-
tory governance framework throughout the semester. This reading provided a vital nor-
mative reference for the entire structure of the class, as well as a key framework for
analyzing community organizations. Staff members of the client organizations contrib-
uted to our deliberations throughout the semester. They, and the community members
8 Current Sociology 00(0)
where we did our fieldwork, participated in the closed-door discussion which followed
the presentation of our report.
Taking a citizen-led approach required a lot of preparation, constant readjustment,
and imposed major constraints on any ability to direct the project in the mode of a tradi-
tional Principal Investigator. For example, prior to the semester, the instructor had to
establish the initial link with target organizations and organize Institutional Review
Board (IRB) approval, while leaving scope for substantial student innovation and also
protecting the interests of participants. Student researchers – as a group and as individu-
als – had substantial leeway to follow their own interests under the broad rubric of study-
ing ‘community engagement’, subject to the team’s ability to gain the necessary access
to interviewees and field sites. The semi-structured interview guide also gave students a
lot of leeway to tailor their questions to the situation at hand.
Public. Singapore’s peculiar political context was a persistent constraint on the level
of publicness that was possible during this research. The lack of protection for civil lib-
erties and the concentration of power in the state (Tan, 2016) limited the willingness of
the research team or study participants (including public servants) to make public com-
ments. We did not disseminate the findings of our study publicly (other than in the final
presentation). We avoided media coverage of the study and avoided identifying our field
sites. In fact, the access we had to the field sites and interviewees was often obtained
in exchange for our agreement to keep a low public profile (over and above the usual
anonymity).
In response to the situational constraints on publicness, students presented the research
at a closed-door event under the Chatham House rule for an audience including our part-
ners, civil society organizations we met and studied, academics, and assorted govern-
ment organizations with responsibilities for social services and community engagement.
Both the research team and the final presentation audience operated as mini-publics3
(Dryzek, 2012); they were small groups who engaged in deliberative discussion about
contested political and ethical issues. The strengths of this approach were evident when
many more civil society and government officials attended the final forum than would
participate in the study, although very few even asked any questions. For us, this pointed
to our research reaching the limits of publicness in the context we found ourselves.
Outcomes
Scaled. The aggregate data collection – a total of 157 field visits and interviews across
three semesters – was well beyond the capacity of the academic alone. However, to serve
the learning of the students, the three research teams were kept insulated from each
other. Consequently, the fieldwork provided more breadth of coverage than depth. The
instructor benefited from the breadth of fieldwork, but also supervised the fieldwork
quite closely in order to be able to make connections across visits to related sites. The
students did produce highly detailed fieldnotes by reconciling multiple perspectives on
a single set of social interactions, thus capturing details that one person might miss – or
mis-recognize (Fine, 1993). The fact that the students were themselves locals brought
insider knowledge that the instructor lacked, ranging from fluency in Singlish and other
local languages to an intimate familiarity with Singapore’s Housing Development Board
Amirrudin et al. 9
apartment buildings. As a researcher, this sustained and direct engagement with the field-
work, with the students almost acting as an additional layer of informants, was a power-
ful foundation for academic study. Two article manuscripts have been written based on
this fieldwork.
Citizen-led. The students were exposed to a high degree of uncertainty in this course,
and they addressed it through actions based on reasoned deliberation. One set of students
was forced to make major editorial decisions for their final report without the instructor
being present to manage or guide the process. In addition, the instructor had to leave
space for students to make decisions that the instructor did not agree with. Students came
to understand citizen-leadership through their own empowered participation.
Public. Students had to engage extensively with the city they live in, the challenges
facing civil society, and the concerns of disadvantaged communities. For some, this
meant engaging with issues of deep personal concern, particularly for those with first-
hand experience of poverty. For others, the personal encounter with poverty was eye-
opening. The relationship of civil society organizations with the state was thoroughly
debated. In their end of term course evaluations, 33 of 36 student respondents agreed or
strongly agreed (the averages were 4.56 and 4.35 on a 5-point Likert-type scale for the
two times this was asked) that they ‘feel better prepared for a lifelong commitment to
civic engagement and social responsibility in Singapore’ due to this course.
Beyond the numbers, the transformative nature of the course for both the students and
instructor was a palpable feature. We could not get all the access we wanted as some
government offices with public-facing responsibility for social services refused to speak
to us. Bringing original evidence to a classroom discussion of the state’s lack of transpar-
ency and its controls over civil society was a novel and sometimes discomfiting experi-
ence for the students. In the first task force, the students received feedback on their report
from a public servant who objected to the use of a particular phrase. The instructor left
the choice of wording to the students, and they voted to change it after a feisty exchange
among themselves. The students made the choice to self-censor in the face of power, but
stripping all pretense from the decision was a learning moment. Without a public record
of its findings, however, the task force leaves a sense of unfulfilled potential. Future
iterations of the task force could address this by building in public components such as
blog posts, a poster exhibition, or an open-door final event into the course.
Comparable study. We look at Teo You Yenn’s research, published in her two books, This
Is What Inequality Looks Like (2018) and Neoliberal Morality in Singapore (2011), as
comparable studies. Teo’s ethnographic work collected data on the everyday lives of
Singaporeans through in-depth interviews and used them to understand Singapore soci-
ety and its inherent social structures. In her books, she describes how the data collection
process took place over slightly more than a decade since 2003 and draws on interviews
with over 200 and 60 respondents for each of her books, respectively. Teo’s earlier work
made academic contributions, while the 2018 book was immensely successful in gener-
ating public discussion on inequality. Media coverage of her work was wide, and her
research was quoted in a parliamentary discussion on income inequality (Jagdish, 2018;
10 Current Sociology 00(0)
J. Seow, 2018). Teo achieved scale in data collection through the classic ethnographer’s
path of long-term, continual individual effort. While Teo’s work has benefited enor-
mously from her approach, one could also imagine a similar project which uses our
framework (scaled, citizen-led, public), completed in a shorter period of time, mobilizing
and educating ordinary citizens, and providing a pool of engaged citizens upon the public
release of the study. Rather than doing so through the course of the research, Teo built an
engaged community through the sales of her popular press book, op-ed pieces, and mul-
titude of public engagements on the topic of inequality, thereby serving as an exemplar
for public sociology in Singapore (Teo, 2021).
Case study 2: the Labour Court Research Project
Two of the authors led a study on low-waged migrant workers in Singapore, the Labour
Court Research Project (LCRP), in 2016–2017. The study evaluated the system for pro-
cessing salary and injury disputes for low-waged migrant workers in Singapore. The
research aimed at policy reform through respectful engagement with the government and
raising public awareness.
Motivation. The coalition of academics, students, and NGOs were drawn together by a
common concern about the failures of an injury and salary claim system for migrant work-
ers, and apparent unwillingness by authorities to acknowledge or address these problems.
Our decision to scale the research was largely done for practical reasons. Experienced
advocates advised that a small qualitative study was likely to be ignored by policy makers
and the media. To be able to collect a large dataset, we made the study citizen-led involving
more than 100 academics, students, and NGO staff and volunteers. Practically, collecting
and coding 150 qualitative interviews and writing a report over a period of 6 months would
not have been possible without a large volunteer research team.
Method
Scaled. We had a large research team and conducted a large number of interviews.
The research team numbered more than 100 volunteers, including 7 co-authors, around
50 interviewers, approximately 10–20 interpreters, 15 qualitative analysis coders, and
several dozen experts from NGOs, medical and legal professions, and universities who
reviewed and commented on drafts of the report.
An important practical consequence of this scale was that we needed to organize the
conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, and writing through formal and rela-
tively inflexible structures. In the case of data collection and coding, we developed a
multi-layered management structure, with supervisors, project managers, shift supervi-
sors, and interviewers/coders. Thus, the scaling imposed a considerable managerial bur-
den in the form of investment in supervision and establishing consensus-oriented
procedures to manage the many participants. We found this to be an unavoidable cost of
scaling, though it did become easier with practice.
Citizen-led. Our research was citizen-led through the involvement of non-profession-
als as co-researchers. Few team members had any graduate research training. These non-
Amirrudin et al. 11
professional researchers came from a wide variety of backgrounds – including NGO staff
and volunteers, undergraduate and graduate students, medical practitioners, and lawyers
– and played a role in all stages of the project, including conceptualization, design, ethics
approval, data collection, data analysis, writing, and dissemination.
Our meetings and discussions were conducted in a classroom-like environment and in
a democratic fashion. Anyone, including those with or without relevant experience, had
a chance to share their inputs. This process added value, particularly to the research
design and outcomes, through the involvement of people with diverse backgrounds. For
example, many of our volunteers had direct experience of the long process injured
migrant workers face. Firsthand knowledge of these processes and the workers involved
meant that our interview questions could be tailored to ask about important, but often
overlooked, steps in the process, and also incorporate jargon and slang widely used by
injured workers. The research leads managed logistics prior to the actual meeting (i.e.
venue, agenda setting) and also contributed during the meeting.
A trade-off of involving participants with different levels of experience in doing
research is the variance in richness of the data collected. The less experienced partici-
pants often did not ask as many probing questions during the interview, thus producing
fewer rich quotes. We overcame this challenge through continued training and support
for the research team.
Public. The intrinsically motivating social purpose was important in helping us to
recruit and mobilize a large number of volunteer non-professional researchers. The pub-
licness of the research fueled commitment, focused work, and motivated the necessary
personal sacrifice needed to complete the project. In addition, the public nature of our
research topic allows us to draw on significant sympathy and support from larger civil
society in Singapore.
This public focus did impose costs on the lead researchers. The research was not val-
ued by senior colleagues with a narrow view of what counts toward evaluations for
career progression. In addition, writing public reports does not expedite the academic
publication process. There are some synergies in collecting and analyzing data, but not
in publishing.
Outcomes
Scaled. We had hoped that scale would give us greater influence on policy and media,
allow saturation of a more complex model of the problems, and provide more weighty
evidence for elements of our model that might otherwise be disregarded as one-off cases.
In general, we did achieve these objectives. We had a considerable number of closed-
door meetings with policy makers, a launch with over 100 attendees, and prominent
media coverage (Toh, 2017). In addition, we could show the repeated occurrence of
problems (such as forged pay slips, or witness intimidation) that were systemic presented
in our final report (Fillinger et al., 2017).
The scaling, however, did have trade-offs, and imposed costs and constraints on us as
lead researchers. The investment in supervision was substantial. Creating formal hierar-
chical structures of volunteers which also comply with protecting participants (as
required by IRB) required considerable organizational and project management skills.
12 Current Sociology 00(0)
Similarly, we faced challenges managing large weekly meetings and negotiating with a
diverse coalition of groups and people. As well as the investment of time, this scale made
the research process less flexible: we could not quickly change decisions that took
months to reach or change research methods which people had already been trained to
implement.
To implement this scaling, our research method brought together academic social sci-
ence research with volunteerism and public advocacy. Success was dependent on expe-
rienced persons who could bridge these two worlds.
Citizen-led. Through a citizen-led approach, our research could reach a large scale
at low cost, democratically involve non-professionals, and avoid being skewed toward
academic concerns. The research cost very little. Besides a small foundation grant
(SGD$10,000) – which was spent on printing the report, managing IRB compliance
(anonymization and storage of data), and editing the final report – there was no other
funding. The research democratically involved volunteers and built a network of volun-
teer researchers which had not existed before. Many participants reported being affected
by both their contact with migrant workers and their empowerment as researchers. At
many points throughout the project, non-professional researchers succeeded in refo-
cusing the research toward social injustice and helping migrant workers. Without these
interventions, we feel that the research would have been skewed toward academic ques-
tions and of less help to migrant workers.
Public. The research met the conditions of being public since it was aimed at produc-
ing a public policy report, aimed at generating a dialogue among a non-professional
public – the Singaporean government, NGOs, employers, and the public at large – about
a value that is not automatically shared; in this case how Singapore relates to a vulner-
able population, which NGOs claim are mistreated, and government and business claim
are generally happy. The public aspect of the research was the primary motivation for all
involved, driving committed engagement and deep participation, and enabled a project
of this scale.
Our public launch of the research was a significant medium through which we publi-
cized our research. We produced a magazine-like booklet containing the findings of our
research and key takeaways which we then printed and distributed copies of at the launch.
The booklet also included a foreword written by the former attorney general of Singapore
who was personally invested in the cause. Our launch was attended by media, academics,
and members of the public. It generated some public discussion in the days after through
news articles and podcasts interviewing one of us regarding the research.
Comparable study. We look at Charanpal Bal’s (2016) research, documented in his book
Production Politics and Migrant Labour Regimes: Guest Workers in Asia and the Gulf,
as a comparable study. Bal’s research provided a study of temporary migrant workers in
Singapore using data he collected from 45 in-depth interviews with workers and 4 months
of participant observation of workers at their workplace. Bal’s work is significant in that
it is the only research on male migrant workers in Singapore that has been able to collect
data through participant observation at the workplace. Bal’s (2017) work was able to
Amirrudin et al. 13
incorporate elements of publicness and generated public discussion on the topic via lec-
tures and written articles.
In comparing Bal’s work with the method outlined in this article, we observe that
Bal’s research could have stood to gain further breadth had it adopted elements of scale
and participation. Involving volunteers from migrant worker NGOs could have, for
example, enabled the research to collect participant observation data from more work-
place locations. Capturing such a variety of observations might have been useful in bol-
stering the public impact of the research.
Challenges of doing scaled, citizen-led, and public
qualitative research
Our experience with doing scaled, citizen-led, and public qualitative research revealed
five areas that pose potential challenges: creating a deliberative environment, systema-
tizing data collection, systematizing data analysis, being alert to the sensitivities of work-
ing on public issues, and conducting scaled participatory research ethically.
Creating a deliberative environment
In citizen-led research, it is essential to create an environment where participants feel
confident to exercise decision-making powers over the research process (Bergold and
Thomas, 2012). To do so, the professional researchers had to overcome the knowledge
gap between them and participants; they also had to take on the taxing role of project
manager. This entailed establishing the planning, training, and supervisory structures
necessary for novice non-professional researchers to have immersive field experiences
– and these needed to be arranged beforehand so that non-professional researchers could
experience fieldwork as part of their introduction to the project. On an ongoing basis, we
had to facilitate genuinely deliberative decision making with non-professional research-
ers (who may well have considerable professional accomplishment in their own fields).
We do not think that meaningful collaboration between members of the research team
requires perfect equality – the professional researchers will still need to lead some parts
of the decision making – but rather that participants share their opinions in meetings. The
professional researcher must maintain the discursive space which allows for team mem-
bers to contribute, and sometimes this means reserving their own views or going along
with decisions that they do not necessarily agree with.
Systematizing data collection
Collecting large volumes of qualitative data can be complex due to the need to maintain
consistent quality across the large volume of data despite the rather unstructured nature
of qualitative data. From our experience, we found it helpful to systematize the data col-
lection process to allow for some structure that would help reduce inconsistencies across
the data collected. We systematized data collection by doing a few things including (1)
mandating training for participants who wanted to be interviewers; (2) negotiating the
field sites and access to interviewees well in advance; (3) organizing interviewers by
14 Current Sociology 00(0)
shifts such that they would gather at a single point, be briefed on the interview protocols,
and disperse to conduct interviews; (4) setting a time limit for interviewers to submit
fieldnotes (e.g. fieldnotes had to be submitted within twenty-four hours of interviews
and/or observations); and (5) having both non-professional and professional researchers
check through fieldnotes written by novice researchers to provide them with feedback in
cases where fieldnotes were inadequate.
Systematizing data analysis
Similar to data collection, analyzing large volumes of qualitative data is challenging in that
more labor-power is required to achieve this, and this labor-power needs to conduct the
analysis in a consistent manner despite there being no fixed formula for doing the analysis.
We systematized data analysis with various techniques including (1) mandating training for
participants who wanted to do data analysis, (2) having regular discussions with participants
to clarify differing interpretations of how thematic coding framework is applied and letting
the professional researchers make the final decision on the coding framework, (3) ensuring
that each interview is coded by one participant and re-coded by another to maintain consist-
ency, and (4) having only a small team in the final analysis process where coded interviews
are used to identify key findings which are then written up for the research output.
Challenge of working on public issues
Working on public issues posed difficulties. First, exposure of novice researchers to
harsh social realities may be stressful for them. For example, in the task force, encoun-
ters with families in rented public housing shocked some who had not been exposed to
this side of Singapore, while others had to confront childhood memories of similar cir-
cumstances. We learnt that this can be better managed by preparing researchers in
advance: providing realistic examples of what to expect, sharing advice from social
workers in similar situations, and practicing cognitive distancing.
A second difficulty was negotiating political environments that are not welcoming of
research on public issues. Singapore’s state-dominated environment translated into stu-
dents, researchers, and the civil society organizations we studied being wary speaking
about politically sensitive issues. This affected both our ability to collect data and to
present the research findings. We used compensating strategies to mitigate this effect,
such as presenting our findings to a limited audience and involving the relevant govern-
ment authorities at early stages of the research.
A third difficulty was the involvement of vulnerable populations in our research and
thus the need to protect them. We addressed this through traditional methods, such as
protecting confidentiality, informed consent, and ensuring the research helped to advance
the interests of research subjects.
The challenge of conducting scaled citizen-led research ethically
Citizen-led research raises two further ethical questions: first, how do you ensure ethical
treatment of participants by non-professional researchers; and second, how ethical is it to
Amirrudin et al. 15
use uncompensated volunteer labor for research? Our studies address the first question
by requiring all researcher team members to undertake ethics training and through con-
tinuous involvement by professional researchers. On the issue of uncompensated labor,
participation in any specific activity was voluntary to the greatest possible extent and the
participants were involved in decision making. These expectations were clear during the
training, and we ensured that volunteers only contributed the number of hours that they
are comfortable with. Furthermore, the professional researcher has to ensure that reason-
able norms (i.e. 1–4 hours per week for working professionals, and less than 8 except in
exceptional circumstances) are established so as to avoid the potential for exploitation.
Conclusion
Through our framework, we have proposed to combine scale, publicness, and citizen-
leadership to support qualitative research under the constraint of limited resources. The
constraints and ambitions which drew us to developing this framework include a desire
to reach out to and involve ordinary citizens, to study issues of public importance, but
with limited access to funding. We build on the growing body of work in conducting
public sociological interventions as a collective enterprise (Collins et al., 2017) and
engaging citizens as knowledge producers (Purdam, 2014) by offering practical guid-
ance derived from our own experience. In Figure 1, we identified the possibility of a
virtuous cycle being generated through the positive interaction of the three dimensions
of our framework.
We found that our scaled data collection produced depth by capturing data from mul-
tiple perspectives and by sampling across a greater variety of situations without having
the research coming to resemble a survey (Small, 2009). In addition, the scaling, particu-
larly the large-scale documentation of injustices, reinforced the urgency of our research
and was essential to establishing key claims.
The citizen-led aspect of our research did improve research quality through cross-
checking and multiple perspectives (Lamont and White, 2008; Morrill et al., 2005). We
also saw volunteers both develop their skills in research design and evidence collection.
In addition, the norms of a democratic process within the project energized the broader
participatory vision of the research team (Freire, 2000). Tapping the intrinsic motivation
of the research team was essential in fueling the virtuous cycle described in Figure 1.
With respect to the public aspect of the research, Burawoy’s (2005) definition mapped
onto our project surprisingly closely: we promoted dialogue about values and goals not
automatically shared among non-academic publics. While our research did not achieve
immediate policy changes, our projects had an impact through the substantial number of
people engaged by our projects – particularly the people for whom it was a catalytic first
engagement – and built a community to whom this work is legible (Teo, 2021).
To evaluate the success of implementing our framework, we consider whether those
positive interactions did indeed emerge. In Table 1, we have summarized the main ben-
efits and trade-offs of incorporating each of these three elements into one’s qualitative
research, and summarized our two case studies against this criteria. The student taskforce
conducted 157 field visits and generated 300,000 words of field notes which helped the
researcher generate two article manuscripts (beyond this one). Over 50 citizen
16 Current Sociology 00(0)
Table 1. Examples of benefits and trade-offs of scaled, citizen-led, and public aspects of each case study.
Case study 1: Taskforce Case study 2: Labour Court
Scaled
Benefits
• Increased impact
• Quality evidence and analysis
• 157 field visits
• 300,000+ words of fieldnotes
• Two article manuscripts under preparation
• Multiple observers increased accuracy and
objectivity
• 150 in-depth interviews
• Received significant government and media attention
because of scale
• Found numerous cases of mistreatment to support claim
that problem is systemic
Trade-offs
• Investment in supervision
• Inflexible system
• A lot of time invested in training and managing
logistics
• Elaborate and rigid internal procedures and processes
Public
Benefits
• Motivates volunteers
• A more just society
• S tudents cited task force as encouraging
lifelong commitment to public engagement
• Deep commitment of volunteers driven by the social issue
• Research was part of larger social movement that has led to
significant legal reform
Trade-offs
• Less focus on academic questions
• Slower academic publication
• Less career incentives
• Framing and writing of academic publications a
second, separate process
• Keeping a low profile in exchange for access
limited public impact
• Self-censorship
• Framing and writing of academic publications a second,
separate process
• Explicitly and implicitly undervalued by university
Citizen-led
Benefits
• Provides resources
• Democratic engagement
• Collective self-actualization
• 50+ citizen researchers made scale of research
possible
• Reasoned deliberation of concrete social
problems drove growth of citizen researchers
• P articipatory governance of research became
normative reference point for analysis
• 100 + citizen researchers made scale of research possible
• Drew on expertise across wide range of citizen’s expertise
(e.g. medical, legal, safety)
• Generated networks of informed and active citizens
• First step of ongoing engagement for many citizen
researchers
Trade-offs
• Investment in training
• Uneven data quality
• Students sometimes chose research directions
away from the PI’s core interests.
• Elaborate procedures for IRB, training, internal processes,
data protection, data checking, analysis, writing.
PI: Principal Investigator; IRB: Institutional Review Board.
Amirrudin et al. 17
researchers conducted their work within a framework of participatory governance and
subsequently credited the experience as encouraging lifelong commitment to public
engagement. The Labour Court project conducted 150 in-depth interviews, published of
a high-quality report with a foreword by the former Attorney General, and generated
significant media attention on the numerous cases of mistreatment found through the
interviews. Over 100 citizen researchers were involved, many of whom first encountered
migrant worker advocacy through the project, and many of whom have stayed engaged
in both research and advocacy for migrant workers.
Overall, both case studies offer benefits and trade-offs against all three dimensions in a
manner that defies an easy assessment of success or failure. Nonetheless, the affective trans-
formation of participants through their experience with public research and their continuing
engagement in related endeavors are strong arguments in favor of the merits of our approach.
Scaling gives this research approach the ability to collect compelling evidence for
richer theorization and convincing argumentation. Citizen-led research methods provide
low-cost resources for scaling, incorporating multiple perspectives, and empowering
non-professional researchers to generate change. Publicness can motivate researchers
through its potential to effect important social change and ensure social relevance.
To manage the public element, we followed established practices from previous
research conducted in Singapore on similar topics. These practices include maintaining
a consultative relationship with the respective government agencies, keeping them
informed before making our research findings public, and using closed-door events with
select invitees to share our findings. For any other researchers adopting this framework,
they will have to make their own informed assessments regarding how best to position
their approach within their political context.
We hope that this framework can meet many diverse needs. It has significant promise
in areas of public concern where it is difficult to mobilize research funds. Marginalized
communities may benefit from this low-cost, high-impact approach to research and
through this, generate evidence for their claims for social and economic justice. This
approach to research may also have significant influence on policy makers and the public
alike, through involving ordinary citizens as co-producers of research who are informed
and engaged with the issues at hand. The framework serves the public mission of the
university by connecting teaching and research to the university’s social environment
and by incorporating citizens into the research process. The practice of this framework
can cultivate a citizenry accustomed to open and reasoned deliberation on public issues.
We look forward to further application and experimentation with this framework and
hope that it will provide a basis for deeper and more effective collaboration on research
that brings citizens into the discussion of important public issues.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Singaporean citizens and migrant workers who agreed to be partici-
pants in this research. The authors hope they have done justice to the participants’ stories, and
helped these stories contribute to building a brighter future. A.A. and N.H. owe a debt of gratitude
to the many talented and tireless citizen researchers of the Labour Court Research Project. I.N.
would like to thank the students from whom he learned so much, and all the organizations that
generously shared their time and thoughts with the authors.
18 Current Sociology 00(0)
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: The Labour Court Research Project was supported by a grant from the
Chen Su Lan Trust. The Public Policy Task Forces were supported by the SMU-X program.
ORCID iDs
Nicholas Harrigan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5092-1180
Ijlal Naqvi https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7351-8482
Notes
1. Neither the researchers nor the non-professionals in our model need to be citizens per se in
the state where the research takes place. We use citizen-led to include anyone making a claim
on human dignity rather than the rights afforded by citizenship of a particular state.
2. The then Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, used this phrase to describe Singapore’s ‘Out of
Bounds’ (or OB) markers in 1994, as quoted in Tan (2016).
3. Examples of mini-publics include citizen juries and citizen’s assemblies. While being repre-
sentative is not necessary, mini-publics should be diverse and deliberative.
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Author biographies
Amirah Amirrudin is an academic researcher in the field of sociology. She mainly studies low-
wage migrant workers in Singapore, covering issues such as work and living conditions, labor
exploitation, and temporary migration programs. She graduated from Singapore Management
University with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and second major in Sociology.
Nicholas Harrigan is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. His
major areas of research include social networks, particularly networks of conflict; low-wage
migrant workers in Australia and Asia; and participatory approaches to social research. Before
joining Macquarie University, he was Assistant Professor of Sociology at Singapore Management
University (2008–2017), postdoctoral researcher in Sociology at Nuffield College at the University
of Oxford, and completed a PhD in Politics at the Australian National University.
Ijlal Naqvi is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean (Curriculum and Teaching) at
the School of Social Sciences of Singapore Management University. He studies governance and
development in the Global South, using infrastructure as a lens on state-capacity and the citizen’s
engagement with the state on an everyday basis. His book manuscript, titled Access to Power:
Electricity and the Infrastructural State in Pakistan, is under contract with Oxford University
Press. He earned his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Amirrudin et al. 21
Résumé
Nous proposons un cadre pour les sciences sociales citoyennes qui réunit trois
éléments d’un projet de recherche qui se renforcent mutuellement: échelle, leadership
citoyen, et caractère public, l’objectif étant d’améliorer la recherche qualitative. Cette
approche est née d’une nécessité: nous souhaitions impliquer des citoyens ordinaires
dans la recherche sur des questions d’intérêt public, avec un financement limité. Nous
illustrons l’application de notre approche à partir de données de recherches que
nous avons dirigées, à savoir: premièrement, une série d’études qualitatives sur des
organismes publics et organisations de la société civile qui travaillent sur la participation
communautaire, réalisées par des d’étudiants en politiques publiques de trois années
distinctes; et deuxièmement, une étude qualitative sur le système de traitement des
litiges relatifs aux salaires et aux accidents pour des travailleurs migrants faiblement
rémunérés à Singapour, menée par plus de 100 bénévoles et activistes. En nous appuyant
sur un examen de la littérature et sur nos propres expériences, nous évoquons les
avantages et les inconvénients d’adopter cette approche et suggérons des méthodes
pratiques pour faire de la science sociale citoyenne.
Mots-clés
Méthodes qualitatives, recherche participative, sciences sociales citoyennes, sociologie
orientée vers la résolution des problèmes, sociologie publique
Resumen
En este artículo se propone un marco para la ciencia social ciudadana que reúne tres
elementos de un proyecto de investigación que se refuerzan mutuamente: escala,
liderazgo ciudadano y carácter público. El objetivo es mejorar la investigación cualitativa.
Nuestro enfoque nació de la necesidad, de un deseo de involucrar a los ciudadanos
comunes en la investigación de temas públicos, con fondos limitados. Se ilustra la
aplicación de nuestro enfoque utilizando conocimientos de investigaciones que hemos
dirigido. Se incluye primero una serie de estudios cualitativos sobre organizaciones
estatales y de la sociedad civil que trabajan en la participación comunitaria, llevados a
cabo durante tres años diferentes por estudiantes en políticas públicas. Y, en segundo
lugar, un estudio cualitativo sobre el sistema de gestión de disputas sobre salarios y
accidentes para trabajadores migrantes con salarios bajos en Singapur, realizado por
más de 100 voluntarios y activistas. A partir de una revisión de la literatura y de nuestras
propias experiencias, se tratan las ventajas y los inconvenientes de adoptar este enfoque
y se sugieren métodos prácticos para realizar ciencia social ciudadana.
Palabras clave
Ciencia social ciudadana, investigación participativa, métodos cualitativos, sociología
orientada a la resolución de problemas, sociología pública
