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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Now showing 1 - 10 of 27
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    Relevance of community‑based participatory research in community medicine training
    (Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 2020) Krishnan, Anand; Tandon, Rajesh; Nongkynrih, Baridalyne
    Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach in which researchers undertake research in partnership with those affected by the issue being studied, for the purpose of taking action or effecting so-cial change. It can also incorporate those who will use the results to change practice and inform policy. The practice of CBPR is primarily fo-cused on "Knowledge for Change." Most research projects in such CBPR partnerships are funded through the academic partners. In many situations, academic and professional researcher institutions and researchers find it difficult to share the information and resources or to di-rectly engage with local community and other local stakeholders. In practice, finding an intermediary partner who has good rapport with lo-cal community and local government can be very effective. While there are good initiatives in selected medical colleges for community orien-tation of medical undergraduates and postgraduates in community medicine, these are not immersive enough to cause an attitudinal change. It is time that we exposed our graduates and postgraduates to CBPR concepts and practice
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    Social research for social action: An introduction
    (Indian Social Institute, 1998) Fernandes, W; Tandon, Rajesh
    Though claims are made about the objective and value-free nature of social research, in reality, oftener than not it leads to some form of social action, sometimes aimed at questioning the status quo and usually by maintaining it. In fact, social research and social action are similar and interdependent. Both entail human activity within a given human setting and feed each other. Social research is allied with social action though it may not always lead to it directly while social action is invariably based on some research. One can argue that even coercive and repressive social action entails a certain data-base as is evident from the deeds of investigative and police agencies all over the world. Studies have shown bow aggressive marketing practices of multinational corporations, exploitation of the Third World markets and over-pricing-are based on extensive research of their market potential and methods of making a given product acceptable to the consumer i.e., creating a need that docs not really exist.
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    Participatory research as a methodology of development
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 0000) Tandon, Rajesh
    This paper questions how development research has usually been done. It points out that classical research keeps a firm line between the researcher and the people being studied, treats the researcher's own values as something to be kept out of the picture, and leaves control of the whole process in the researcher's hands alone. Participatory research is put forward as a way of working that sets these assumptions aside. Here the problem to be studied comes from the community itself, the people affected take an active part in the inquiry, and the researcher works alongside them rather than above them. Three examples from India carry the idea forward. In West Bengal, sharecroppers were registered through village camps under what became known as Operation Barga. In southern Rajasthan, twelve tribal families built a shared irrigation system by reviving an old local practice of water-sharing. In Maharashtra, an organisation called Shramik Sanghatana brought together landless labourers and tribal women around wages, land rights and the effects of alcoholism on their households. Through these cases, the paper highlights some of the more challenging issues that participatory research raises, such as its closeness to political action, the difficulty of applying it in unorganized communities, and the need for a researcher's personal perspective before people are willing to trust the process.
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    Knowledge for change (K4C): Face to face residency. March 11-23, 2018
    (UNESCO Chair, 2018-03-23) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
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    Fostering social responsibility in higher education in India
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2014) Tandon, Rajesh
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    Learning to Do, Learning to Be, Learning to Learn: Education for tomorrow
    (2020) Tandon, Rajesh
    The text discusses the need for sustainable development in modern civilization, education's role in society's economic, social, and environmental challenges, and education's capacity to foster learning to do, learn to be, and learn to know. It highlights HEIs' importance in co-creating and sharing knowledge and expertise to benefit society. In particular, the article describes the relationship between higher education institutions (universities) and the community as two-way communication where the community is considered a partner in education. Furthermore, the text emphasizes the importance of adopting an approach that promotes quality education (SDG 4), as well as education for sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, global citizenship, culture, and active societies (community engagement). In addition, the text promotes universities that are committed to contributing to society that values individuals and encourages them to lead fulfilling lives and become responsible and ethical agents.
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    Participatory research in Asia
    (1980) Tandon, Rajesh
    This book, edited by Rajesh Tandon and published in 1980 for the Asian-South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education, gathers the first two years of work under the Participatory Research Project coordinated through the International Council for Adult Education. He opens the collection with his own essay mapping the character of participatory research as it had taken shape across Asia by the late 1970s, tracing its overwhelmingly rural base, its entanglement with social action, and the political risk that came with working alongside landless labourers and tribal groups in states not always tolerant of organising. The theoretical section that follows sets contributors against each other rather than in agreement: Zafrullah Chowdhury reads decades of foreign-funded medical research in Bangladesh as a continuation of colonial control dressed up as philanthropy, while other papers by Banerjee, Ghosh and Das question participatory research's claims to method and rigour from more sceptical angles. The case studies, left largely unedited from their original submissions, cover a literacy programme in Mehrauli, the Shramik Sangathan's organising among agricultural workers, the Gonoshasthaya Kendra health centre in Dacca, and projects in the Philippines and Rajasthan, closing with reports from four regional meetings and a note on the project's founding objectives.
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    Promoting fair and equitable research partnerships to respond to global challenges
    (Rethinking Research Collaborative, 2018) Fransman, Jude; Hall, Budd L; Hayman, Rachel; Narayanan, Pradeep; Newman, Kate; Tandon, Rajesh
    This research report presents the findings from a programme of strategic research, funded by UKRI through the GCRF. The research sought to elicit a 'partners' perspective' on participation in UKRI-funded research by generating data from three groups of partners: i) academics based in the global South; ii) civil society practitioners based in the global South; and iii) international NGOs and research capacity providers based in the UK. Drawing on this data, the report identifies eight principles for understanding and improving fair and equitable research collaboration which form the basis of a series of targeted learning modules for 6 groups of stakeholders: UK-based research funders; UK-based academics; research brokers and capacity providers; international NGOs; academics based in the global South; and civil society practitioners based in the global South.
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    Ideology and political economy in inquiry: Action research and participatory research
    (Sage Publication, 1983-09) Brown, L. David; Tandon, Rajesh

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