Community Knowledge

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Start date: 1979End date: 1979

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    Knowledge as a commodity and participatory research
    (UNESCO, 1979) Hall, Budd L
    What is knowledge? How is it formed? Who has the authority to “make” it? and who does it ultimately serve? These are the central questions Dr. Budd Hall raises in this article. He critiques the way traditional intellectuals such as scientists and scholars, often trained in elite universities and supported by international funding agencies, are institutionally positioned as the legitimate producers of knowledge. Embedded within particular class locations, this group often produces knowledge that serves its own class interests and maintains dominant social relations. In this process, organic intellectuals engaged in critical reflection and grassroots organising are sidelined as knowledge makers. Drawing on the works of Freire, Mao and others, Hall reflects on the role of intellectuals. He advances a systematic critique of survey research and outlines the guiding principles of participatory research. The article is a critical inquiry into the nature of knowledge within the new international order. It calls for moving beyond viewing knowledge as intellectual commodities such as papers and conferences and toward recognising and valuing local and indigenous knowledge systems, while developing more decentralised ways of legitimising people as producers of knowledge.
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    Participatory research meeting in India
    (1979-02) Tandon, Rajesh
    This report documents a Participatory Research (PR) meeting held in February 1979. It was attended by 35 activists, field workers, researchers, and practitioners from across India. It describes case studies shared at the meeting, including West Bengal's Operation Barga sharecropper registration drive, a tribal-led irrigation scheme in Rajasthan, and the mobilization of landless labourers and tribal women through Maharashtra's Shramik Sangathana. The report then turns to debates that emerged on PR's relationship to social action, the overlapping roles of researcher and activist, the risk of fostering dependency, and possible entry points for PR work, along with a comparison of PR and classical research across five guiding principles. It closes by reflecting on the empathy and self-awareness needed in a participatory researcher.