PEER is a participatory qualitative research method designed by experts at Options Consultancy Services Ltd in collaboration with academics at the Centre for Development Studies, Swansea University. Members of a community (peer researchers) are trained to carry out in-depth conversational interviews with friends in their social networks, and to report back findings in a series of in-depth interviews with a social scientist. Peer researchers are often from marginalised and harder to reach social groups, and PEER works equally well with non-literate groups.

 

By working with established relationships of trust between friends, PEER generates rich narrative data which provide insight into how people view their world, and how they make decisions on key issues. The close partnerships developed with peer researchers represent entry points for future work with marginalised social groups.

 

 

 

 

Play the video below to learn more about how PEER is used.