What is Community Research?: PROXIMITY

What Is Community Research is a three-part documentary series exploring a simple but urgent question: who gets to produce knowledge about our lives? Across its three films - Proximity, Problems and Possibilities - the series journeys through Brixton, South London, meeting the people working at the intersection of health inequality, systemic neglect and grassroots resilience. From walking groups tackling diabetes to Black men using performance to mark Suicide Prevention Day, the films reveal research not as an academic exercise, but as something rooted in trust, relationships and lived experience. Honest about the tensions - extractive institutions, exploitative contracts and the limits of good intentions - the series also asks who is excluded when formal systems decide whose knowledge counts. In response, it offers a different vision: one where communities are not simply participants in research, but producers of knowledge; where data is humanised; and where evidence is created to strengthen communities, not simply study them. At its heart, What Is Community Research is a call to imagine research as a collective, creative and deeply human practice capable of reshaping how knowledge - and ultimately social change - is produced. What Is Community Research forms part of Living the Archive - an ongoing body of research, storytelling and public conversation exploring how communities create knowledge, preserve experience and shape cultural change. Episode 1: Proximity Rather than beginning with systems or methods, Proximity begins with people. Through a neighbourhood walking group, creative mental health work led by the Black Men's Consortium, and the everyday relationships that sustain community life, the film explores why those living closest to complex social issues often hold the deepest knowledge about them. It asks what becomes possible when lived experience is recognised not as anecdote, but as expertise. Learn More What Is Community Research is part of Living the Archive - an ecosystem bringing together participatory research, documentary filmmaking and public conversation to explore how knowledge can create cultural and social change. Living the Archive is led by Roots & Rigour, AiAi Studios and Rigour & Flow, working together to connect research, storytelling and cultural change. Discover more about the ecosystem: https://livingthearchive.my.canva.site Subscribe If this documentary sparked new questions or challenged how you think about research, community or social change, we'd love to have you with us. Subscribe for more documentaries, conversations and podcasts exploring race, health, inequality, identity and participatory research.