Knowledge Democracy / Participatory Research
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://192.9.200.215:4000/handle/123456789/123
Welcome to the Knowledge Democracy / Participatory Research Community. This community serves as a comprehensive repository of resources on participatory approaches, community-based research, and collaborative inquiry methods. Our mission is to foster knowledge sharing and support initiatives that empower communities to contribute to research, ensuring their voices shape the knowledge that impacts their lives.
Explore a wealth of materials, including case studies, policy papers, training guides, and research publications that highlight the practice and principles of participatory research worldwide.
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Item Challenging the master’s tools: Pedagogies of community-based participatory research(2014) Hall, Budd L; Etmanski, CatherineItem In the face of neoliberalism and other evil things: Canadian adult education as a social movement(2016) Hall, Budd LThis review by Dr. Budd L. Hall examines three works on Canadian adult education and argues that the field is best understood as a social movement rooted in struggles for social justice, democracy, and collective learning. Through a critical discussion of Building on Critical Traditions, Lifelong Learning as Critical Action, and Moving Forward Giving Back, Hall traces a shared concern that adult education, whatever pressure it faces from neoliberalism and professionalization, remains alive in communities, in struggles for Indigenous self-determination, in labour organizing, and in everyday acts of learning for change. The review engages Grace's call for lifelong learning as critical action, Nesbit's framing of the field as a social movement, and Silver's account of Aboriginal adult education in Winnipeg, finding in all three a refusal to reduce learning to credentialing or economic utility. Hall argues that adult education in Canada continues to draw its energy from the margins from communities pushing back against inequality, demanding recognition, and building knowledge on their own terms.Item Participatory research: Canadian adult educators build a global movement(0000) Hall, Budd L; Jackson, Edward TWhat role did Canadian adult educators play in shaping one of the most significant global research movements of the twentieth century? In this chapter, Dr. Budd Hall and Edward T. Jackson trace the history and evolution of participatory research as a major approach in adult education and community-engaged scholarship. The Participatory Research Group was founded in 1976 at OISE and was the Canadian node of the International Participatory Research Network. The group worked with labor, Indigenous organizations, immigrant associations, women’s groups, and other community-based organizations. It also describes important transformations in institutions, including the creation of international research networks, the expansion of community-university partnerships, and the emergence of programs like the Community-University Research Alliances (CURA) and UNESCO-supported initiatives that promote knowledge democracy. The chapter concludes with an analysis on lessons learned from five decades of practice and a reaffirmation of the ongoing relevance of participatory research for the advancement of equity, democratic participation, and socially responsive forms of education.Item Social movements and the practice of citizenship: Learning in the canadian and global context(0000) Aggarwal, Pramila; Hall, Budd LHow can learnings from social movements advance the practice of citizenship? In this paper, Budd L. Hall and Pramila Aggarwal argue that social movements are intensive sites of democratic learning where citizenship is not only claimed but actively practiced. They identify interconnected forms of learning. Informal learning among participants, intentional educational efforts within movements, and broader public learning that occurs as movements reshape public understanding. Knowledge generated in struggle travels beyond direct participants. Hall reflects, for instance, on how insights from the women’s movement transformed his own understanding of power even though he was not directly part of it. Drawing on the work of Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire, this paper situates social movements as spaces where learning, agency and structural critique converge. Movements generate new knowledge, identities and capacities for collective action, thereby expanding the meaning and practice of citizenship beyond legality and advancing adult learning as a lived, collective process. The authors posit that social movement learning can serve as vital sites for advancing adult learning and, by extension, deepening democratic citizenship.Item Towards a new architecture of knowledge: The creation of an office of community-based research at the University of Victoria(2007) Hall, Budd L; Lydon, Maeve; Trapero, JoaquinThis report by Dr. Budd Hall examines the development of a proposed Office of Community-Based Research at the University of Victoria through a 14-month participatory consultation involving faculty, community organizations, and Aboriginal community members. The report is grounded in the principles of engaged scholarship, knowledge mobilization, and participatory research. It challenges traditional views of universities as primary producers of knowledge and highlights the importance of co-created knowledge generated through partnerships with communities and civil society. Through surveys, interviews, workshops, and community dialogues, Hall identifies the structural, cultural, and ethical conditions necessary for effective university–community research partnerships. The report concludes that a dedicated community-based research and knowledge mobilization program can strengthen civic engagement, advance social justice, and support more inclusive approaches to knowledge production in higher education.Item Knowledge, democracy, and epistemic in/justice: Reflections on a conversation(2020) Hall, Budd L; Godrie, Baptiste; Heck, IsabelThe focus of the article is on how knowledge is created, who creates knowledge, how is knowledge co-constructed, whose knowledge is excluded and how is knowledge being used to challenge inequalities and strengthen social movement capacity? This article grew from a fascinating conversation that the three of us had in Montreal in September of 2019. We decided to share our stories about knowledge and justice with a wider audience in part as a way for us to reflect further on the meaning of our initial conversation, but also to invite others into the discussion. The three of us are Baptise Godrie works in a research centre (CREMIS) affiliated with Quebec’s health care and social services system, Isabel Heck with the anti-poverty organization Parole d’excluEs, both affiliated to universities, and Budd Hall from the university of Victoria and the Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based research and social responsibility in higher education.Item Towards a knowledge democracy movement(2016) Hall, Budd LWhat would it mean to build a democracy of knowledge in a world marked by deep inequality and exclusion? In this paper, Dr. Budd L. Hall examines the emergence of a knowledge democracy movement, connecting traditions of adult education with practices of community-based research and community–university engagement. Placing his argument within global concerns such as poverty, ecological crisis and democratic strain, he challenges dominant assumptions that position universities as the primary producers of legitimate knowledge. Drawing on institutional experience, international networks and illustrative case examples including the Office of Community Based Research at the University of Victoria and global alliances for community engaged research, Hall combines historical analysis with empirical insights. The paper brings together intellectual traditions in adult education with examples from engaged scholarship to demonstrate how knowledge is created across multiple sites. Hall argues that knowledge democracy requires recognizing communities, Indigenous peoples and social movements as knowledge producers in their own right. By foregrounding plural epistemologies and participatory research, he calls for rethinking the architecture of knowledge to advance social action, citizenship and social justice in the twenty-first century.Item Everything old is new again: The importance of engagement to University-based Adult Education in Canada(2010) Hall, Budd LWhat place does engagement hold in the history and future of university-based adult education in Canada? In this paper, Dr. Budd L. Hall traces the historical roots and contemporary revival of engagement within Canadian adult and continuing education. Beginning with the British extramural tradition and early extension movements at institutions such as the University of Alberta, St. Francis Xavier, McGill and Toronto, he situates adult education as deeply embedded in community life and democratic practice. He reflects on the professionalisation of adult education in the 1960s and 70s, alongside the growth of academic research and national scholarly networks. Hall then examines the emergence of community–university engagement as a renewed and institutionalised force, highlighting initiatives such as the SSHRC Community University Research Alliance, Service aux Collectivités in Québec, and newer community-based research structures across Canadian universities. Drawing on historical analysis, institutional developments and diverse scholarship, he argues that engagement is not a new add-on but a return to foundational commitments. The paper encourages adult educators to reclaim and strengthen their role within this growing movement toward democratic, community-engaged higher education.Item Higher education, community engagement, and the public good: Building the future of continuing education in Canada(Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education, 2009) Hall, Budd LThis article is about the potential for university-community engagement to serve the public good by transforming the health and well-being of our communities. It documents contemporary expressions of and renewed calls for community university engagement. It includes a detailed treatment of community based research, discussed in the overall context of community-university engagement. The article also explores some other important and growing dimensions of community university engagement, including the development of structures for the support of community-based research and community-service learning. It concludes with an argument that university-community engagement, while not the only current trend in higher education that affects our work in continuing education, is nonetheless a very important new development in which continuing education has much to offer and much to gain.Item “I AM NOT A PEACENIK”: Adult learning of development education in English-speaking Canada(Canadian and International Education, 1983) Hall, Budd LWhat can development education look like in a changing world order? In this article, Dr. Budd Hall reflects on the meaning of development education and the approaches of adult learning within it. Drawing on thinkers such as Freire, Tawney, Marx and others, he examines their fundamental principles and approaches to education, and considers how adult learning can be understood through their perspectives. He foregrounds the persistent and difficult questions that confront development educators across the world, particularly those related to power, positionality, access, influence and reflexivity. Through examples ranging from Gatt Fly in Canada to educators in Tanzania, he traces common threads across varied experiences. Reflecting on his own work, the experiences of other educators, and major intellectual traditions, Hall reflects upon how development education must respond to the challenges of a changing world order. He also emphasises the interdependence of countries and argues that development education must fundamentally recognise and engage with this reality. Situated in the 1980s, the article offers a critical reflection on the direction and responsibilities of development education.