Aawaaj Research
Why Research?
Research is a systematic and reflexive process through which societies examine how knowledge is produced, whose experiences are documented, and which assumptions shape public decision-making. In contexts such as Nepal, where political debate, policy discourse, and media narratives often move faster than empirical reflection, research serves a critical corrective function. It introduces methodological rigour, contextual depth, and analytical accountability into public conversations that might otherwise rely on anecdote, ideology, or short-term political expediency.
Rigorous research allows for the identification of patterns across time and space, connects individual experiences to broader structural processes, and tests claims against evidence. It enables distinctions between correlation and causation, representation and reality, and stated intent and actual impact. For institutions, policymakers, civil society, and the public alike, research provides a shared evidentiary ground upon which debate, disagreement, and reform can meaningfully occur.
Aawaaj Research is grounded in an understanding of research as cumulative, ethically situated, and socially engaged, and at the same time recognises its own limitations while striving for analytical clarity, relevance, and public value.
Why Social Research?
Nepal is undergoing significant political and social transformation. Increased political awareness and participation reflect growing and sustained democratic engagement, yet they also coincide with growing polarisation, simplified narratives, and heightened distrust across ideological and social lines. In such moments of transition, social research becomes especially necessary.
Many of Nepal’s most pressing challenges, which include economic inequalities, access to quality healthcare and education, climate vulnerability, disaster response, development, migration, and media representation, are not evenly experienced. Their impacts are shaped by entrenched social structures related to caste, class, gender, geography, and access to power. Social research enables these structures to be examined empirically rather than assumed, and makes visible how inequality is produced, reproduced, and, at times, rendered invisible.
In Nepal, like in the rest of the world, the growth of populist political discourse, while occasionally framing social equity and economic growth as competing priorities, sideline redistributive concerns altogether. Inequality is increasingly narrated through the language of merit, individual effort, and national progress, rather than as a product of structural conditions and unequal access to power. This shift is not unique to Nepal but reflects broader global trends in which market-oriented development trajectories and uneven economic outcomes have coincided with the growing appeal of populist narratives.
Social research plays a critical role in examining how these dynamics interact locally by empirically reasserting inequality as a systemic issue shaped by institutions, policies, and historical processes. By identifying emerging fault lines early, social research contributes to addressing exclusion and polarisation before they become entrenched, and to grounding public debate in evidence rather than abstraction.
Why Aawaaj Research?
Aawaaj News is expanding its work through Aawaaj Research, a dedicated research wing focused on examining Nepal’s social and political life through evidence-based inquiry. While media representation and discourse shaping remain central concerns, Aawaaj Research also investigates broader questions of inequality, marginality, and structural exclusion. Our work seeks to bring forward perspectives that are often overlooked in mainstream narratives and to offer alternative, empirically grounded ways of understanding Nepal’s changing society.
Built on the belief that media plays a critical role in shaping public understanding, Aawaaj Research foregrounds questions of representation, power, and equity, and analyses how narratives, both within and beyond media, shape public discourse. As a research initiative emerging from a media organisation, Aawaaj Research is uniquely positioned to examine not only social and political realities, but also how those realities are narrated, framed, and contested in the public sphere.
Our research approach combines rigorous qualitative and quantitative methodologies, enabling us to capture both lived experiences and structural patterns. We aim to produce work that is publicly accessible, policy-relevant, and grounded in Nepal’s socio-political realities. Rather than treating research as a purely academic exercise, Aawaaj Research understands it as an intervention, one that informs public debate, challenges dominant assumptions, and works to re-centre social perspectives within national political discourse.
Through these efforts, Aawaaj Research seeks to contribute to a deeper, more equitable understanding of Nepal’s social and political landscape, and to strengthen the role of evidence in public dialogue.
Research Approach and Methodological Expertise
Depending on the nature of the research question, Aawaaj Research employs qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods research approaches. Our methodological expertise includes:
Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) to engage community voices, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, journalists, and leaders.Â
Survey Design and Quantitative Analysis to identify trends, disparities, and structural patterns across populations and regions.Â
Participant Observation and Ethnography, involving long-term, immersive engagement that enables nuanced understanding of social processes and lived realities; this approach requires sustained time and commitment and is central to our analytical practice.Â
Digital Ethnography to examine online spaces, political communication, and the formation of digital publics.Â
Discourse and Media Analysis to systematically analyse framing, representation, and power within media and political narratives
Independence and Transparency
Aawaaj News and Aawaaj Research are independent media and research initiatives. Our research activities are internally funded unless explicitly stated otherwise. While Aawaaj News & Research works with, and remains open to working with external partners, such collaborations do not compromise our editorial or analytical independence.
In instances where research is commissioned, grant-funded, or supported through any form of financial assistance, the research output will explicitly disclose the funding source. Donors, institutional partners, and financial supporters will be clearly acknowledged to ensure transparency, accountability, and adherence to ethical research standards