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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Start date: 2000Subject: search.filters.subject.Global

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 102
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    50th anniversary edition of pedagogy of the oppressed
    (2020) Hall, Budd L
    Why has Pedagogy of the Oppressed remained one of the most influential works in educational thought for more than five decades? In this review, Dr. Budd L. Hall critically examines the 50th Anniversary Edition of Paulo Freire’s foundational work and explores the reasons for its enduring global impact. Drawing on personal recollections from his time in 1970s Tanzania, Hall reflects on how Freire's philosophy shaped early radical adult literacy initiatives. The review emphasizes that the strength of Freire’s work emerged from its close connection to the experiences of marginalized communities and literacy movements in Brazil, where dialogue and collective reflection became tools for understanding and challenging oppression. This is further enriched by contributions from Donaldo Macedo and Ira Shor, whose writings in the anniversary edition highlight the continuing relevance of Freire’s ideas in a world marked by inequality and political polarization. Ultimately, the review concludes that Freire's work remains significant because it demonstrates how education can enable marginalized communities to understand, challenge, and transform oppressive social conditions.
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    Mobilizing community and academic knowledge for transformative change: The story of the UNESCO Chair in community based research and social responsibility in higher education
    (The Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s IdeaLab, 2017) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
    What role can higher education play in advancing knowledge democracy and fulfilling its social responsibility? This paper co-authored by Dr. Budd L. Hall and Dr. Rajesh Tandon reflects the establishment, evolution, and contributions of the UNESCO chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education. Established in July 2012 as a unique co-chair partnership bridging the University of Victoria (Canada) and Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA, India). This paper outlines the effectiveness of a distinctive global North-South co-chair method in connecting academic institutions with grassroots practitioners to promote knowledge and democracy. The paper explores how universities should collaborate with communities in the co-creation of knowledge to promote social responsibility, inclusion, and sustainable development. Through its three core domains, knowledge mobilization, policy advocacy, and capacity building, the chair has generated substantial, systemic impact. Through global reports, policy dialogues, and training programs, the Chair has influenced higher education policy, fostered international networks, and contributed to embedding engagement and participatory research into the everyday functions of universities. This paper demonstrates how universities can contribute to social change by working closely with communities, promoting sustainable development, and strengthening their social responsibility.
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    Social development monitoring: A process to ensure accountability
    (Prashasnika A Journal of Administrative Processes, 2006-12) Dwivedi, Anju
    What does it mean to monitor development processes, and who holds the power to do so? In this paper, Anju Dwivedi situates social development monitoring within the broader shift toward people centred development that emerged in the 1990s, where participation became central to planning and implementation. Instead of viewing monitoring as a technical exercise carried out by experts, the paper argues for a process rooted in community participation, where citizens continuously observe, question, and engage with development interventions. Social development monitoring is presented as a means of strengthening accountability and governance by creating spaces for those historically excluded to articulate concerns, influence decisions, and exercise control over resources. The process moves beyond an instrumental function of tracking outcomes, and instead operates as a political act that redistributes power and challenges hierarchical decision making structures. By involving communities in identifying issues, generating information, and taking collective action, monitoring becomes a site of learning and citizenship in practice. The paper ultimately positions social development monitoring as a process that not only ensures accountability but also enables communities to shape development pathways in ways that reflect their own priorities, knowledge, and autonomy.
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    Seeing like a citizen’ re-claiming citizenship in a neoliberal world. November 28-29,2005
    (Institute of Development Studies, 2005-11-29) Gaventa, John
    What does it mean to be a citizen, and how is that meaning shifting under neoliberalism? In this paper, Prof. John Gaventa discusses how citizenship has increasingly moved away from a rights centered approach towards a more consumption-based approach. Depoliticised notions of citizenship have taken precedence under neoliberalism, where individuals are framed as consumers, users, voters, or beneficiaries rather than as rights bearing actors in their own right. He situates this shift within broader transformations of the state as well, which is not simply withdrawing but is being reconfigured to actively advance market logics, often weakening its role as a guarantor of rights. Through this paper, Gaventa proposes “reversing the telescope” by centering the perspectives of citizens as actors in development processes. This approach foregrounds what he terms thick forms of citizenship, where participation, contestation, and collective action are central. Moving beyond market, state and democracy first forms of citizenship, he argues that placing citizens first enables a re-politicisation of citizenship, strengthening claims to rights, accountability, and more meaningful democratic engagement.
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    Leave no one behind. Repositioning Higher Education for achieving SDGs
    (UNESCO Chair, 2022-11-05) Vargiu, Andrea; Tandon, Rajesh; Kaul, Niharika
    Recent global disruptions connected to financial turbulence, pandemic outbreak, and global political instability up for hybrid warfare put the 2030 Agenda's vision at risk. Higher Education (HE) is central to the 2030 Agenda, but its potential hasn't been fully deployed thus far. A stronger role of HE in tackling the world's most pressing issues is therefore necessary. Which requires the repositioning of HE and the reshaping of its principles and practices. By referring to extensive experience on the ground of the Knowledge for Change Consortium members, and a wide range of contributions from the Global South and the excluded North, this policy brief approaches this need by discussing four interrelated themes: 1. HE for the public good 2. Socially inclusive HE 3. Diversity of epistemologies and knowledge systems 4. Contextual responsiveness and place-based learning This policy brief calls on HE leaders and actors to promote transformations within their institutions and HE systems, using the recommendations to critically reflect and act to reposition HE for achieving the 2030 Agenda.
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    Social responsibility in higher education: An International perspective
    (UNESCO Chair, 2022-03-06) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd L; Gauthier, Maéva; Kaul, Niharika
    In this post-pandemic world, it is important to have a new, more inclusive and robust framework of social responsibility in higher education. This brief will highlight key features of socially responsible higher education pertaining to the World High Education Conference (WHEC) themes of Inclusion in Higher Education, Higher Education Governance, Quality and Relevance of Programmes, and the Futures of Higher Education. Key elements include 1) Recognition of diversities of knowledge systems and epistemologies; 2) Integration of teaching, research and engagement missions; 3) Contextually responsive, locally rooted, place based and linguistically plural; 4) Socially inclusive, seeking diversity amongst students and academics; 5) Pluriversality replacing universality; 6) Transcending rankings and 7) Reclaiming the purpose of higher education as a common good. This policy brief, will review these key elements in more detail to advance the prevalent discourse on social responsibility of higher education. This set of principles strengthens a new, more societally oriented, knowledge democracy perspective on social responsibility of higher education. In the emerging aftermath of COVID- 19, such a knowledge democracy perspective is required to re-position and re- align higher education institutions, policies and systems around the world.
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    Bridging the gap between the researcher and the community: PRIA’s engagements in promoting community based research and social responsibility in higher educational institutions
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2014) Tandon, Rajesh; Singh, Wafa; Srinivasan, Sumitra
    PRIA has engaged with academia in a multitude of interventions, bringing community and practitioner knowledge into the portals of traditional research institutions and processes. By doing this, PRIA has helped Higher Educational Institutions (HEls) realize their social responsibility towards a community's needs and aspirations. This document traces PRIA's work in promoting community engagement within HEls in India and beyond. The experience, garnered over three decades, have been classified into six categories to highlight the different forms PRIA's interventions as a facilitator have taken to build bridges between the world of formal research, the practitioner knowledge of civil society actors and the experiential knowledge of local communities. The experiences discussed in this paper are not intended to be comprehensive; a few specific interventions are described under each category to illustrate the nature of the engagements fostered and the practices promoted.
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