Community Knowledge

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    Lambatlaya
    (Institute of Social Work & Community Development (ISWCD), 1984) Abad, Henedina; Hall, Budd L; Gawasnon, Banika; Sadulla, Jaime; Veneracion, Ma. Corazon J; Tolentino, Carmina; Freire, Paulo; Lanot, Marra P.L; Lacaba, Jose F; Tan, Rene; Torres, Amaryllis T; Magno, Neng
    This bulletin is about participatory research as an alternative to traditional social science research practice in the Philippines, particularly research “with” and “for” the people. The contributions review research practices in which professional social scientists assume total or partial responsibility for defining problems, collecting, analyzing, interpreting data, and presenting findings to poor and vulnerable communities as if they are only research subjects. This bulletin draws lessons from the authors’ varied experiences in community development, adult education, health, rural and urban organizing, and social action. Participatory research is discussed as a praxis, that is, a process of inquiry, reflection, learning, and action. Participatory Action Research, participatory conscientizing research, community participation in research, alternative approaches to research, and building community research capacity are some of the issues taken up. Emphasis is placed on people’s participation in problem definition, data collection, analysis and interpretation, decision-making, and action. The contributions also take up issues of professional researchers’ monopoly over knowledge production, people’s concepts and analysis, community organization and empowerment, connecting research with action, and people’s participation in development planning. The bulletin further raises questions concerning methodology, research evaluation, community participation indicators, scientific validity, cost effectiveness, and research linkages with development planning. The contributions are by Henedina Abad, Rene Tan, Budd L. Hall, Amaryllis Torres, Neng Magno, and Ma. Corazon J. Veneracion. This bulletin also contains bibliographic essays by Jaime M. Sedullo, Ma. Corazon J. Veneracion, and Carmina Tolentino.
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    Creating knowledge: A monopoly? Participatory research in development
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1982-06) Hall, Budd L; Gillete, Arthur; Tandon, Rajesh
    This book is about participatory research as a political process bound up with questions of power and knowledge production, rather than merely a set of methods. It opens with the Jamaican Drama for Progress literacy project, where a shift from delivering pre-written messages to villagers toward enabling them to write and perform their own material captures the move from research done on people to research done with them. Drawing on the Latin American tradition of investigación acción and Paulo Freire's thematic investigation, the collection questions who is authorised to produce knowledge about poverty and underdevelopment. Five theoretical essays address participation, power and alternative methods, followed by seven case studies from Indonesia, Senegal, Tanzania, England, Chile, Canada and India, and a concluding section of critical reactions. Rather than success stories, what emerges are unresolved questions about initiating participatory work, sustaining ties with political organisations, and balancing theory with praxis in research committed to social transformation.
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    Participatory research: Revisiting the roots
    (2002) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd L; Brown, L. David; Jaitli, Harsh; Kanhere, Vijay; Small, Dele; Gaventa, John; Merrifield, Juliet; Madiath, Anthya; Belamide, Eileen; Bryceson, Deborah; Manicom, Linzi; Kassam, Yusuf; Vio Grossi, Francisco; Hirabai Hiralal, Mohan; Tare, Savita; Batliwala, Srilatha; Patel, Sheela; Khot, Seemantinee
    It has been nearly a quarter of a century since the early formulations of participatory research began to be presented hesitatingly and tentatively. Those early proposals were essentially a reaction to the classical methodology of research and inquiry which had alienated the social science research enterprise from the very people about whom research was being carried out. In a simple way, stated then, participatory research challenged the 'monopoly of knowledge' which has been vested in the elites of our society. The production of knowledge, its certification and dissemination have been controlled by intellectual elites in all human societies, since a long period of time. The Brahmanical order justified its hierarchy by making the distinction between intellectual work and physical work. Brahmins were the repositories of knowledge and wisdom, could use the language of God's 'Sanskrit', and interpret the religious scriptures to prescribe the social norms and behaviour for the rest of society. Similar Brahmanical orders have existed in other cultures and other histories. Therefore, the first significant contribution of participatory research has been to challenge the mythical and artificial divide between mental labour and manual labour, intellectual pursuits and physical pursuits. It has questioned the belief that capacity for intellectual work resides in only a few. It argued that popular knowledge, ability to produce and use knowledge, is a universal human phenomenon, and such capacity exists in all human beings, so argued participatory research then.
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    Looking back, looking forward: Reflections on the origins of the international participatory research network and the participatory research group in Toronto, Canada
    (1997) Hall, Budd L
    In this article, Dr. Budd Hall looks back on the early history of the International Participatory Research Network, founded in 1976 in association with the International Council for Adult Education. He traces his own path into the work through years spent in Tanzania, where Julius Nyerere's ideas on self-reliance, Marja Liisa Swantz's participant research, and a 1971 visit from Paulo Freire shaped his understanding of research as an act of solidarity rather than a neutral exercise. He describes the 1975 special issue of Convergence that first drew together scattered efforts around the world, the 1977 Cartagena conference with Orlando Fals Borda and other Latin American scholar-activists, and the network's founding commitment to autonomous, horizontally organised nodes across Toronto, New Delhi, Dar es Salaam, the Netherlands, and Caracas. He then considers what role universities should play in a field built on breaking the academy's monopoly over knowledge production and reflects on the structural pressures that work against genuine collaboration between academics and communities. The article closes by asking whether participatory research might extend further, toward co-creating knowledge with the rest of nature.