Episode 31 – Realist Research Across Ways of Knowing with Kenneth Yakubu

[on-hold music] Hello, everyone.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you're joining us from in the world today, and welcome to another episode of The Realist Lens for researchers who keep it real.

Today, we are stepping into a space that is both exciting and challenging.

What happens when realist approaches meet other research traditions, disciplines, and ways of knowing? Realist approaches are often described as useful for working with complexity.

They help us ask what works for whom, in what context, and why.

But interdisciplinary research brings its own kind of complexity.

Different fields often come with different assumptions about evidence, causation, knowledge, and even truth itself.

And when realist approaches are brought together with indigenous methodologies, implementation science, global health governance, and culturally grounded ways of knowing, the work can become relational, epistemological, and deeply political.

To explore this, I am joined by Dr. Kenneth Yakubu, whose work sits at the intersection of health systems, global health governance, implementation research, health equity, and realist thinking.

His research focuses on understanding and improving governance across health and social systems, supporting multicultural communities, and evaluating complex interventions aimed at advancing equity.

In this conversation, we will explore what it really means to navigate competing perspectives when realist approaches are combined with other disciplines and traditions.

We will talk about Yakubu's experience leading the development of a realist protocol that brought together indigenous methodologies, implementation science, and other ways of thinking, a process that took nearly two years to reach shared agreement.

We will unpack where the tensions emerge, what made alignment difficult, and how researchers can work across different assumptions without flattening, absorbing, or privileging one tradition over another.

So without further ado, I'm really delighted to welcome you to the podcast, Yakubu.

[on-hold music] Hello, everyone.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you're joining us from in the world today, and welcome to another episode of The Realist Lens for researchers who keep it real.

Today, we are stepping into a space that is both exciting and challenging.

What happens when realist approaches meet other research traditions, disciplines, and ways of knowing? Realist approaches are often described as useful for working with complexity.

They help us ask what works for whom, in what context, and why.

But interdisciplinary research brings its own kind of complexity.

Different fields often come with different assumptions about evidence, causation, knowledge, and even truth itself.

And when realist approaches are brought together with indigenous methodologies, implementation science, global health governance, and culturally grounded ways of knowing, the work can become relational, epistemological, and deeply political.

To explore this, I am joined by Dr. Kenneth Yakubu, whose work sits at the intersection of health systems, global health governance, implementation research, health equity, and realist thinking.

His research focuses on understanding and improving governance across health and social systems, supporting multicultural communities, and evaluating complex interventions aimed at advancing equity.

In this conversation, we will explore what it really means to navigate competing perspectives when realist approaches are combined with other disciplines and traditions.

We will talk about Yakubu's experience leading the development of a realist protocol that brought together indigenous methodologies, implementation science, and other ways of thinking, a process that took nearly two years to reach shared agreement.

We will unpack where the tensions emerge, what made alignment difficult, and how researchers can work across different assumptions without flattening, absorbing, or privileging one tradition over another.

So without further ado, I'm really delighted to welcome you to the podcast, Yakubu.