participatory research

  • to be truly participatory, participants need a say in the design of the research
  • question the role of researcher and why that gives privilege
  • give other voices more space, thinking about knowledge production through the research
  • consider co-design and co-research, shifting agency
  • working with partner networks, local communities, community advisory boards, autonomous collectives
  • knowledge as co-creation, not control
  • decolonial, emancipatory, iterative
  • benefitting the communities involved and not just your own career
  • consultation -> collaboration -> co-creation
  • requires genuine commitment and is intensive on time, resources and facilitative skill
  • does the primary researcher remain the primary stakeholder or is it completely non-hierarchical? a spectrum of approaches from researcher-led to community-led
  • Sustainable engagement and long-term relationships over extractive consultation
  • sharing power, credit and responsibility
  • feeding back
  • intentionally engaging others in your work
  • negotiation and compromise
  • roles and hierarchies
  • if you’re not willing to lose some of your power you’re exerting your power
  • paternalism
  • to learn from participants - how they expect input to correspond to communication and what they’re inclined to talk about, to describe, explain etc
  • form it will take, prototyping testing early on
  • PAR cycle (observe-reflect-plan-act)

Mentions

Section titled “Mentions”
  • “The ethos behind participatory action research, involving consultation and participation processes, is not for researchers to adopt the responsibility of improving each individual’s and family’s life. Instead, if individuals, families, communities and institutions including governments are interested in improving, or could be convinced to improve, then researchers and practitioners can use participatory action research to facilitate, support and assist the parties’ own actions. (Kelman, Lewis, Gaillard, & Mercer, 2011, p. 65)” (Thomas, Eggins & Papoutsaki, 2016)
  • “For communities, the collective watching of video material means the negotiation of shared meanings and understandings. It creates an opportunity to discuss perceptions within a group. […] Knowledge is put out in the open, and through collective viewing, everyone is brought on the same level for discussion.” (Thomas, Eggins & Papoutsaki, 2016)
    • on sharing outcomes
  • “part of a broader commitment to shift the dominant paradigmatic view that keeps the academy and community separated: to acknowledge the multiple dimensions that constitute and form the human condition—physical, emotional, spiritual, social, cultural—and the myriad ways of engaging in the world—oral, literal, visual, embodied.”- (Knowles and Cole, 2008, p.60) ” (Thomas, Eggins & Papoutsaki, 2016)
  • “Action research starts “from an orientation of change with others” rather than the change of others (Reason & Bradbury, 2008, p. 1). Participants, researchers, and community members in this case engaged in processes of cyclic action from observing, reflecting, planning, and action. The situational characteristic of action research allows for the evaluation of individual and community transformations, revealing how knowledge is processed and constantly (re)formulated within the discourse of culture (see Gegeo & Gegeo-Watson, 2002)” (Thomas, Eggins & Papoutsaki, 2016)

References

Section titled “References”

Resources

Section titled “Resources”