This Article is written by Yoland Wadsworth (1998)
For at least seventy years, some researchers around the world have been identifying what they do using terms like ‘action research’, or ‘participatory research’, or a combination of these. Some have stressed the action component,1 while others have focused more on the participatory process. 2 Still others have come from the field of social science and have identified it as a means of inquiry or research per se. 3
This paper came about in response to requests to speak about some of the collective wisdom that has been generated over many decades by people who have identified what they do using the term ‘participatory action research’. It is the way I tell the story.
Throughout this account participatory action research is contrasted with formulations of conventional research science. For me, participatory action research is not a different and separate matter from science at all, but constitutes a formulation of how I understand all science in the wake of the wave of thinking that is popularly being called the ‘new physics’. This ‘new physics’ or ‘new paradigm science’ 4 in the natural physical world seems to me to match a ‘new paradigm science’ in the social world. I identify ‘participatory action research’ 5 not as an optional variant or specialist technique, but as one of the more inclusive descriptions of this new understanding of social science.
This short paper sets out to identify some of the main characteristics of participatory action research for me, and to try and show why I have come to the following two conclusions:
‘Participatory action research’ is a description of social research per se (albeit social research which is more conscious of its underlying assumptions, and collectivist nature, its action consequences and its driving values).
It faces numerous barriers to its practice which mean that, even when we think we might be doing ‘it’, we often have our doubts! I have come to conclude that pretty much all of the research we are involved in, is more or less an approximation in the direction of ‘it’. That is, every piece of research is more or less participatory. It more or less enables action as part of the process. And it all involves more or less critical reflexive, skeptical and imaginative inquiry.
I have found it handy to summarize its major distinguishing characteristics under the three headings which make up its name, that is: ‘participation’, ‘action’ and ‘research’. I commence with an attempt to outline the defining characteristics of participatory action research as research in the kind of everyday experience we have whenever we want to inquire into something in our lives. In the most tiny example can be found the same structure or logic of inquiry as in the most extensive long -term university research program.
You can download more detailed article here: Participatory Action Research: What is It?
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Notes from Prof. yusufhadi