Participatory Action Research & Practice

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/38

Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach to community education that involves local people in defining and analyzing their own problems, and then taking action to change them. While people have been doing this for many years, this particular approach arose out of efforts in East Africa in the 1970s when development workers realized that people learn more, solve problems more efficiently, and feel a greater sense of power when they actively participate in research and action projects - not passively, as in the traditional development model. Participatory research grew out of this goal, namely to make everybody researchers and development workers.

Since that time participatory research has been used and the concept refined, through Africa, Asia and Latin America and more recently in Europe and North America. While the nature of these activities varies greatly from case to case, all share the same broad goals: to involve local (usually marginalized) people in the creation and analysis of their own knowledge, and in the implementation of actions that they design to change their situation. In doing so, participatory research aims to empower people, improve the quality of their lives in some concrete way, and work toward long-term structural change.

The Kinsey Dialogue Series was established in memory of our beloved colleague, David Chapin Kinsey. David touched countless lives in the course of his 40 years as a dedicated and outstanding educator, helping people everywhere to inquire, explore and discover the world and themselves. From 1975, David Kinsey served as a faculty member of the School of Education in the Center for International Education at the UMass Amherst. It is our hope that the Kinsey Dialogue Series will uphold his legacy, keeping alive his passionate vision for a better world.

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Kinsey Dialogue Series #2: Participatory Research and Action: Flower, Weed, or Genetically Modified Monster?
(Center for International Education, 2000-01-01) Kane, Eileen
Over the last fifteen years I have been using participatory research in many areas, and especially to look at problems and opportunities for girls' education in developing countries. In this paper, I want to share some ideas about what I think needs to happen if participatory approaches are to grow and flourish in the future. The questions I am asking are, "what is participatory research? is it a sunflower, getting stronger as it pushes toward enlightenment? Is it kudzu, omnipresent and sometimes out of place? Is it a rootless creation, a carbuncle grafted on to the conventional trunk of research? or is it something else entirely?" More specifically, I am asking, "Can we examine the methods used in participatory research to get some insights into is nature, underlying assumptions and philosophy of inquiry? Can we share what we learn from this examination so that practitioners from a variety of culture around the world can challenge adapt or accept these assumptions?"
Kinsey Dialogue Series #3 Landscaping the Learning Environment to Create a Home for the Complex Mind
(2001-01-01) Visser, Jan
I am going to use the opportunity presented by the 2001 David Kinsey lecture to bring together some ideas expressed in m recent work and to reflect on my decades-long experience in creating the conditions for the development of learning in an international context. That experience, and my reflections on it, has led me to recognize that learning is an immensely more complex phenomenon than most of our current practice to promote and facilitate it would have us believe. Consequently, I have come to the conclusion that the complex human mind is poorly at home in much of the environment supposedly created to nurture it. Neglect of the essential conditions for its sustenance and growth has led the mind to lose its natural habitat, putting it at risk of becoming extinct. My emphasis will therefore be on what should be done to landscape the learning environment in such a way that the complex mind can find a home in it. I shall develop my ideas and raise questions about this issue, while calling attention to a number of key concepts.
Kinsey Dialogue Series #4: Claiming Global Space: Global Grassroots Movements
(Center for International Education, 2002-01-01) Batliwala, Srilatha
The influence of transnational civil society organizations and networks - both civil and uncivil - in global politics and unprecedented. Among them, those dedicated to greater social and economic equity and equality, to human security, ecological sustainability, peace, inclusion, and tolerance, have played a particularly effective role in restructuring the norms that inform policy and regulatory frameworks for the world. Some scholarly analysts grant that they have in fact effectively restructured global politics in visible and lasting ways. For this very reason, perhaps, their legitimacy, accountability and constituency base is being challenged by states, multinational corporations, scholars, and leaders of the powerful global institutions they seek to influence or discipline. These challenges make it imperative that they democratize their own structures and the processes by which they generate their agendas. They also bring into the limelight the emerging set of transnational grassroots networks and movements that are contesting for space in global policy making. These newer entities can teach us a great deal about how to create more grounded, constituency-based, accountable global advocacy structures that embody the right to represent those for whom they speak.
Doing Participatory Research: A Feminist Approach
(1987) Maguire, Patricia
Doing Participatory Research does not begin with a pretentious clarion call to action but with a personal narrative enclosing the sharp edge of her critique of male chauvinism in participatory research. As graduate students, we often see the inconsistencies in the theories and practices of the current generation of respected scholars and activists, but we rarely find the courage to own these criticisms fully. In Pat's case, she was astonished that the great "men" of participatory research could simply ignore women's voices while claiming universalist and humane values and liberationalist practices. She simply saw with a clear feminist eye that the participatory research, at that time, was just business as usual. Seeing this so clearly and weighing the implications of confronting so many established people in the field gave her the kind of bout of self-questioning that all committed graduate students experience at critical moments. But, characteristically, Pat forged ahead with her critique and forever changed the face of action research. She wrote a book that has given a generation of readers a model of afairer, more ethical, and expert form of social research. Her practice is theoretically informed, politically alert, personally coherent, and the issues she deals with are among the most difficult in our society: violence against women. Because of the way Pat elected to write this book, a new reader is not likely to realize the scope of Pat's project. At the time she wrote it, located and self-referential narratives were neither popular nor professionally acceptable. We were unaware of the notion of "voice" (other than the passive voice). So, without models to build on, she reformulated social science practice to match her feminist commitments and did so by linking feminism and action research into a single, though multi-faceted, practice wound into elements of personal narrative. She did this not by telling the reader how smart and how well read she is, though I have had the good luck to get to know her personally and to know that she is a consummate scholar. Instead, she tells a story, hooks the reader to her problem by giving an effective voice to her own concerns as a feminist scholar and her desire to be honest and decent to the collaborators in her project. And like all good stories, this one has a moral: no more male business as usual in the social sciences if we want to live up to our typically pretentious assertions that the social sciences, and particularly action research, are of value to society at large. Because she does not use the conventional apparatus of drums and trumpets at the beginning, massive literature reviews in the second chapter, and obscurantist jargonizing, the story simply imprints itself on the reader's consciousness and invokes a dialogue between her research/action practice and the reader's. This is wonderful pedagogy in action and its impact on so many readers is no accident. Feminist action research is not just conventional social research with some added dimensions; it is a rejection of business as usual and the adoption of new forms of narrative to convey its rejection of the past.
"Dialogue is Not a Chaste Event." Comments by Paulo Freire on Issues in Participatory Research
(1985) Jurmo, Paul
This booklet offers a candid glimpse of Paulo Freire's thought in action as he reacts to specific issues raised in a field experience. The case is one of a nonformal education program in Africa that includes an attempt to encourage participation of villagers and lower level staff members in evaluating and planning the project. This effort runs into problems which in turn pose questions for the practitioner. How do you deal with a lack of interest in participation on the part of villagers or staff? What about the resistance of authorities to real participation and its implications? How ethical is it for outsiders to intervene in the affairs of others? As a project member describes the program setting adn poses such dilemmas which faced them, Freire responds to each one. His reflections typically start with conceptual or interpretive dimensions of the issue but then proceed to the practical level of "what to do?" The Paulo-Paul exchange, which is our concern here, was therefore both structured and open. We wanted to know not only what Freire had to say about some troubling issues, but also how he would go about advising the practitioner. So as the overall inquiry was a joint one, in this one-on-one exchange Freire in effect was given points to start from and come back to in his own way. In the process he touched upon a number of sub-topics: Meaning of dialogue and the act of knowing Indigenous ways of knowing Directiveness and manipulation Why those "at the top" resist dialogue Tactics in the context of strategy The educator as politician Motives for going to another culture Unlearning about another culture The need to listen Here, the presentation of the case and specific issues by Paul Jurmo are paraphrased and set in italics. Excerpts of the comments by Paulo Freire are basically the words and sequence of a transcript from a tape of the class session. Occasionally connecting words have been added to clarify the flow, and in this sense Freire's comments are also paraphrased. For those who are not familliar with the writings by Freire, or would be interested in selected publications related to Freire's thought, the bibliography included at the end of this booklet should prove useful.
The Participatory Process: Producing Photoliterature
(Center for International Education, 1977) Cain, Bonnie J.; Comings, John P.
This note describes a step-by-step process for involving learners in the development, production and evaluation of various types of photoliterature including fotonovellas. Technical information on photographic techniques is presented to assist educators in the participatory process. In this manual, we have given suggestions on how to combine participation and the development of photo-literature. First, we consider the rationales for learner-produced materials. In the second section we discuss the participatory process and focus on the relationship of the facilitator (probably you) to the participants and how the facilitator can enhance or inhibit the process. The third section is designed to answer the technical questions a facilitator may have regarding how to put a fotonovela together. The technical aspects are about the same for all types of photo-literature. Participation is difficult to discuss and understand in a vacuum, and, therefore, we have integrated "participatory process boxes" throughout the technical section to give specific suggestions on how to increase participation in the context of specific technical problems. In the fourth section we discuss some considerations in summative evaluation, following in the last section with an examination of some of the "pros" and "cons" of various photo-literature formats.
Participatory Research: An Annotated Bibliography
(Center for Community Education and Action, Inc., 1991) Park, Peter; Kinsey, David
Participatory research is an approach to community education that involves local people in defining and analyzing their own problems, and then taking action to change them. While people have been doing this for thousands of years, this particular approach arose out of efforts in East Africa in the 1970s when development workers realized that people learn more, solve problems more efficiently, and feel a greater sense of power when they actively participate in research and action projects - not passively, as in the traditional development model. Participatory research grew out of this goal, namely to make everybody researchers and development workers. Since that time participatory research has been used and the concept refined, through Africa, Asia and Latin America and more recently in Europe and North America. While the nature of these activities varies greatly from case to case, all share the same broad goals: to involve local (usually marginalized) people in the creation and analysis of their own knowledge, and in the implementation of actions that they design to change their situation. in doing so, participatory research aims to empower people, improve the quality of their lives in some concrete way, and work toward long-term structural change. The Center for Community Education and Action, Inc. (CCEA) in Northampton, MA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting participatory research in the US, as the Participatory Research Network (PRIA) has done in India and the Participatory Research Group has done in Canada. As part of its work CCEA maintains a resource center of articles, monographs, audio and video tapes relevant to participatory research, many of which appear in this bibliography. As part of ts mission to support scholars and practitioners in the field, CCEA in collaboration with the Center for International Education at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, assembled a group of students and scholars to compile and annotate this bibliography. Yet organizing it was not easy. Because participatory research combines liberatory epistemology, methodology, and pedagogy, it occupies a space in alternative paradigm research in which knowledge is created in the service of people for emancipatory purposes. As such it shares its borders with critical theory, action research, and popular education. This circumstance presents difficulties in defining the proper concerns of participatory research. In facing these difficulties we have probably made errors of both omission and commission; we may have left out references judged to be too remote that should have been different theoretical and methodological aspects of participatory research in languages other than English that could have been included here.
Kinsey Dialogue Series #5: Radicalizing the Everyday
(Center for International Education, 2003-01-01) Maguire, Patricia
I begin this presentation by identifying three current challenges for action research as an approach to knowledge creation, and hence challenges for action researchers. This sets the stage for discussion of my personal experiences with one of these challenges, primarily sustaining a connection to action research's radical roots while working with others to create a space for feminist--informed action research in the academy. In particular I will be discussion some of the work I have been engaged in over the past 15 years at the Western New Mexico University, Gallup Graduate studies Center (GGSC) in Gallup, New Mexico.
Kinsey Dialogue Series #3: Landscaping the Learning Environment to Create a Home for the Complex Mind
(Center for International Education, 2001-01-01) Visser, Jan
I am going to use the opportunity presented by the 2001 David Kinsey Lecture to bring together some of the ideas expressed in my recent work, and to reflect on my decades-long experience in creating the conditions for the development of learning in an international context that experience, and my reflections on it, has led me to recognize that learning is an immensely more complex phenomenon than most of our current practice to promote and facilitate it would have us believe. Consequently, I have come to the conclusion that the complex human mind is poorly at home in much of the environment supposedly created to nurture it. Neglect of the essential conditions for its sustenance and growth has led the mind to lose its natural habitat, putting it at risk of becoming extinct. My emphasis will therefor be on what should be done to landscape the learning environment in such a way that the complex mind can find a home in it. I shall develop my ideas and raise questions about this issue, while calling attention to a number of key concepts.
Kinsey Dialogue Series #1: The Origins and Challenges of Participatory Action Research
(Center for International Education, 1999) Borda, Orlando Fals
Participatory research as we now know it, with its emphasis on practice in conditions of exploitation and poverty, originated in Third World countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico, Tanzania and Colombia. Participatory research emerged around 1970, when socials scientists who shared a particular concern about life conditions among the rural poor, became dissatisfied with our training. Our conceptions of Cartesian rationality, progress, and "normal" science had been challenged, and we sought alternative emancipatory modes of research and action. This included looking for conceptual elements to guide our fieldwork that would take us beyond our tentative first steps with social psychology, Marxism, phenomenology and classical theories of participation, including action. But Implicit action alone was not enough. We have felt that it was important to continue to respect the immanent validity of critical methodology, which, as Gadamer taught us, implies one logic of scientific investigation (1960). We wanted to perform our tasks with the same seriousness of purpose and cultivated discipline to which traditional university research had aspired. For example, besides establishing a rigorous and pertinent science, we wanted to pay attention to grassroots people's knowledge. We were ready to discard our learned jargon and to communicate instead through everyday language. Moreover, we tried innovated frames of reference like sharing work with collectives and local groups to lay enlightened foundations for their empowerment. Curiously enough, and in hindsight, we can say that we anticipated postmodernism. At that time, European thinkers were just warming up to this subject. We went beyond them with our attempts to articulate alternative discourses to systematic observations and experiences in the field. This remains a crucial difference among us. From our concerns arose three broad challenges which were related to the scientific and emancipatory construction we were attempting. The first one touched on the relationship between science, knowledge and reason; the second, on the dialectics of theory and practice; and the third on the subject/object tension. I will now briefly describe each challenge and our attempts to face them.

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