Academic-practitioner collaborations:reflections from the Northern Irish context

25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, inequalities from the past persist across indices relating to poverty and access to social housing. This reflection piece considers the work of Belfast-based human rights organisation Participation and the Practice of Rights, and the challenges and opportunities involved in implementing a grassroots human rights-based approach to change through academic-practitioner collaborations. The paper reflects on the need for a more conscious approach to collaboration, to avoid replicating the patterns of dysfunction that are evident in the governance of our divided society.