research methods and involve discussions between small groups of people, where the researcher introduces open-ended questions which participants then discuss among themselves.

Memory workshops are a particular sub-type of focus groups meant to create a collective narrative on challenges communities have faced. They are particularly useful to track the history of formal and informal local institutions and the history of local feuds between communities and out-groups.

# Advantages

Focus groups can provide a deep, localized understanding of social dynamics and can be useful to explore the degree of consensus on issues facing a community and the _mechanisms_ driving changes in social cohesion. They are inherently social in nature and data is generated through conversations and interactions that are in line with local practices and only affected by the researcher in limited ways (Cyr, 2017), thus providing insight into “collective sense making”. They provide information that can be analyzed at three levels - the individual’s, appropriate for triangulation, interactions between two individuals, appropriate for exploration and within the group, appropriate for pretesting (Cyr, 2015). The understanding of mechanisms can help form hypotheses on the determinants and nature of social cohesion that can then be further validated with other data.

Memory workshops can generate rich data on the stories and lived experience of communities, especially when used in conflict settings. In _Rebelocracy,_ Arjona (2016) draws from memory workshops conducted between 2004 and 2012 in Colombia to understand social order during the civil war by examining the motivations of rebel groups and their interactions with existing governance structures. Yaylaci (2020) uses the cases of the Kurdish insurgency in Türkiye and Maoist insurgency in Peru as examples of focus groups, used in complementarity with personal narratives, helping researchers culturally anchor themselves and access reliable accounts of the past by unearthing stories of wartime events and dynamics.

# Constraints

The structural benefits of focus groups can also be a weakness in certain settings. Given that focus groups are typically small and formed through non-probability sampling, it can be difficult to select a representative group of participants. Conversely, selecting a representative group can obstruct free-flowing conversation and increase social desirability bias. Moreover, while focus groups can be useful to observe specific group dynamics, these dynamics may also threaten the validity of the data collected – for instance, in a group that comprises the elites and marginalized members of a community together, the actual dynamics between the groups may restrict or give too much voice to the opinions of socially dominant groups or even fall prey to “groupthink”, where the opinion of the whole group subdues more nuanced individual opinions. In addition, focus groups are often asked to consider hypothetical situations, which may lead to more socially appropriate discussions of settings rather than actual actions that would play out.

A number of strategies exist to maximize the utility of focus groups. A good practice is to consider data from a variety of combinations of different groups, and to use other data to inform the composition of groups. Researchers should endeavor to create open and permissive environments, where opinions are welcome, along with possibly asking respondents to record their individual responses before sharing with the group to helping understand potential divergences between individual and group responses.

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