Voice of change

: Participatory research in the United States and Canada. Park, Peter, Brydon-Miller, Mary, Hall, Budd, & Jackson, Ted. (Eds.). (1993). Toronto: OISE.

Forward (Paulo Freire, ix-x)
Freire saw PR as a "politico-pedagogic instrument for moving women and men to such transformative action" (ix). This approach changes the relationship between research subjects, the silenced, and researchers as well as the subjects' relationship with their own world. Freire stated:
[T]he silenced are not just incidental to the curiosity of the researcher but are the masters of inquiry into the underlying causes of the events in their world. In this context research becomes a means of moving them beyond silence into a quest to proclaim the world. (p. x)

Introduction (Hall, xiii - xxii)

He defines the first uses of the term, PR, in the research in Tanzania in the early 1970s, and tracks its tradition in emancipatory approach to research, including Fals-Borda and Anisur Rahman (1991). Here action is not as explicit as in action research, which is often described as a short cycle, yet action is implicit, more specifically, "mobilizing for action" (Gaventa, 1988, p. 19) or "a guide in their own action" (Rahman, 1991, "The theoretical standpoint of PAR", p. 15).

Hall stated as participatory research "a process which combines three activities: research, education, and action" (p. xiv). He acknowledged feminist influence, in particular Maguire, on the advance of PR, in that she revealed the distinct silence of gender and women in the PR discourse.
Defining characteristics of PR
1) as QUEST OF VOICE (ontological assumption)
Hall stated, "Participatory research fundamentally is about the right to speak" (p. xvii) and "Participatory research argues for the articulation of points of view by the dominated or subordinated, whether form gender, race, ethnicity, or other structures of subordination" (p. xvii).
2) as COUNTER HEGEMONIC PRACTICE (epistemological assumption)
This view presents PR's epistemological perspective. Hall sees the knowledge produced in PR as part of the counter-hegemonic process.

For Hall, thus, PR is an instrument to having the voices from the margins be heard assertively whereas the creation of knowledge becomes a site of resistance.

What is participatory research? A theoretical and methodological perspective (Peter Park, 1-19)

Park defined PR as "a means of putting research capabilities in the hands of the deprived and disenfranchised people so that they can transform their lives for themselves" (p. 1).

Goals: PR aims at bringing about a more just society by helping the oppressed--or poor--change their social structure.

In this milieu, PR plays a role of providing a framework in which people understand the oppressive social forces and produce knowledge in collective action through a partnership with the researcher. Thus, Park stated that PR is profoundly educational in that people searching and researching, which corresponds to experiential learning (Dewey 1963) and transformative pedagogy (Freire 1970). In particular, Park pointed out, the path from knowledge generation to knowledge utilization is direct because the same actors are involved in both activities: There is no middle-person.

Kinds of knowledge: Park names three kinds of knowledge: instrumental, interactive, and critical knowledge. Instrumental knowledge originates from natural sciences in the attempt to control external events. It influenced traditional social sciences, yet it doesn't recognize human factors in social science. Interactive knowledge, on the other hand, makes human community possible by sharing a world together. The third comes through reflection and action, focusing on justice and public good. Park argued that such knowledge should be formed through a public forum with the full participation of the citizenry, of which the perspective resonates in Habermas's (1972) critical theory. With respect to critical knowledge, Park stated that people learn not only the root causes of the problems but also come to "realize that things do not have to remain the way they are and that they can engage in actions to transform the reality" (pp. 8-9) [This reflects what Katrina said in her reflection essay] Park associated this critical knowledge with Freire's conscientization, which refers to the cycle of reflection-action-reflection. [Here action is not something readily applicable and measurable as indicated in most action research literature. It is more internal process in each individual or within a group.]

The Research Process

Park emphasizes the roles of the researcher:

"The researcher participates in the struggle of the people. This is the other side of participation in this kind of work. He or she becomes a member of the research team with a specific role to play. The researcher works with the community to help turn its felt but unarticulated problem into an identifiable topic of collective investigation." (p.9)

Related to this perspective, Park refers to the researcher as the focal point of research:

"They [participants] usually require an organizing force that will act as the focal point around which they can rally and deal with their problem. This is the role that the researcher plays in participatory research" (p. 9)

Thus, "The researcher essentially acts as a discussion organizer and facilitator and as a technical resource person" (p. 10) [But this shouldn't be narrowly understood.]

Park suggests in the evaluation of PR that "Its success will depend on how acutely the problem is felt by the community and how motivated its members are to do something about it"(p. 10) [Here, Park rejects the criteria of validity or trustworthiness and defines different types of criteria for PR.]

Park argued that the researcher should present to the group methodological options. Park agreed that PR is not bound to any particular methodologies and theoretically draws upon all possible research methods. Yet, he warned that certain methods, which separate researched from researcher, such as psychological experimentation researcher, should be eschewed. In addition, any methods should be designed to allow greater interaction between the questioner and the questioned in order to enhance dialogue. Park argued that dialogue is the most critical methodological feature of participatory research.

Unlike traditional (more QUAN) research, in which all responses are converted to measures of variables, Park argued that the validity of PR depends on "the subjects fully emphasizing with the purpose of the study, thoroughly understanding the intent of the questions, and wanting to give the needed information the best way they know how" (p. 13)

Additionally, Park suggested as a long term criterion of PR:

"Because participatory research is a continuous educational process, it does not end with the completion of one project. When successful, it lives on in the radicalized critical consciousness and the renewed emancipatory practices of each participant" (p. 15)

The Question of Validity
Park is more explicit about the criticism on PR's objectivity and validity: knowledge is not objective is not valid. Park argued that this presumption comes from the epistemological prejudice of positivism, which stems from natural science and the emphasis on instrumental knowledge. He argued that the validity of interactive and critical knowledge should be claimed differently: Does the research produce communal understanding through a broad sense of empathy and connectedness? Does this research produce knowledge that leads to transformation and emancipation both internally and with respect to the external world?

Finally Park argued that even that process of establishing the validity of PR should also be participatory, taking the form of participatory evaluation.

Recovering Popular Knowledge
The PR enterprise is to recover popular knowledge to recreate the participants' authentic life. From this viewpoint, Park argued that PR is more effective in the less developed areas of the world, in which indigenous community/knowledge/communal life still remains.


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Gaventa, John. (1991). Participatory research in North America. Convergence. 24 (2-3), 19-28.
Fals-Borda & Rahman. (Eds.). (1991). Action and knowledge: Breaking monopoly with participatory action research. New York: Apex.