Knowledge as Power: Participatory Research as Alternative

Abstract

In the situation of inequalities of which the majority of our country's citizens are victims, the search for the bases of power leads us to one factor that is not easily acknowledged, viz. knowledge as power. Physical force and economic strength are tools of keeping others under control. Political power rein-forces such a situation of power and powerlessness. In recent years, particularly since the growth of organised sciences, the monopoly of knowledge has functioned as a major factor rein-forcing the division of society into 'haves' and 'have-nots', or the powerful and the powerless. This paper will therefore try to attempt an understanding of knowledge as a source of power, its monopoly as a mode of keeping people divided and under control and of strengthening the already powerful. It will then try to find a solution in the form of participatory research which values people's knowledge as against externally imposed scientific knowledge which can be monopolised by only a few.