PARTOCA — Participatory Research Team on Community-Led Action

PARTOCA is a specialized capacity within the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) dedicated to advancing the understanding of how displaced populations navigate their circumstances, seek opportunities, and adapt to changing conditions (including dramatic cuts in aid and climate change) through locally-led, long-term, and cross-border research. Since 2018, what is now known as PARTOCA, has implemented ethnographic, participatory studies across Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. The PARTOCA team is generating people centered evidence that informs humanitarian and development policy and programming at national, regional, and global levels. Our donors and partners include the EU, Innovation Fund Denmark, the John Templeton Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, UNHCR, and the World Bank.

PARTOCA’s participatory research approach is redefining how humanitarian and development actors engage with displaced communities. Key contributions include:

Supporting self-reliance
Understanding hybrid governance
Operationalizing localization and participation commitments
Enhancing cross-border learning
Shaping peacebuilding interventions

Our approach PARTOCA prioritizes community ownership and embedded research practice, distinguished by:

Refugee-driven research: We recruit and train refugees as ethnographic peer researchers embedded within their own communities. This model ensures access, trust, and ethical collection of data.
Participatory research and accountability: Community participation is central to every stage of the research process, making the community reference group essential in representing various relevant stakeholders in the settlement.
Academic and programmatic interface: PARTOCA’s work is guided by an academic advisory group comprising 21 scholars from Universities in East Africa and the Global North.
Longitudinal, cross-border ethnography: Our long-term approach allows for in-depth investigation into displacement dynamics as they evolve across both time and borders.

PARTOCA Project Portfolio

Aspiring for Peace and Inclusion Research (ASPIRE) (2023–2026): Supported by EU INTPA and in partnership with UNHCR and University of Copenhagen, this flagship 15-year longitudinal study of South Sudanese refugees in Kenya and Uganda focuses on community-driven peacebuilding and conflict handling efforts. ASPIRE has produced two detailed findings reports (2023 and 2024), offering rich ethnographic data on how refugees lead conflict resolution, navigate hybrid governance systems, and respond adaptively to prolonged crisis. These findings are directly informing donor design of new programmes and contributing to regional peacebuilding efforts.

Life Matters (2025–2028): Supported by the John Templeton Foundation, this project investigates the long-term aspirations of refugee youth in Kakuma, highlighting how they practice and negotiate virtues such as respect, diligence, and humility while navigating humanitarian systems and intergenerational dynamics.

Adapting Humanitarian Response to Refugees’ Endeavours: Managing Food and Health Insecurity (ADAPT) (2025–2026): Supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, this refugee-driven project examines how displaced communities in Uganda manage food insecurity, severe health challenges, and climate stress in the context of declining aid. Outputs will inform local health actors, national authorities and Humanitarian, Development and Peace-actors with grounded, practical evidence.

Self-reliance in time of aid reduction (2025-2026): World Bank funded study on community-led coping mechanisms and mobility trends in the face of the budget cuts of aid in 2025.

Recognising Refugee Endeavors (2017–2023): Funded by Innovation Fund Denmark and supported by DRC’s internal resources, this foundational ethnographic study laid the groundwork for PARTOCA’s approach. It followed South Sudanese and Sudanese youth in rural camp-based settings in northern Uganda and urban settings in Amman, Jordan over five years, offering deep insight into their collective strategies for participation in decisions on humanitarian action, everyday resilience, and long-term aspirations in contexts of protracted displacement.

Download the reports

Building on ethnographic data from South Sudanese refugees in Uganda and Kenya, annual findings are published on people’s efforts for peaceful coexistence and engagement with authorities and humanitarian actors.