Participatory Research

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    Transformative learning through environmental action: An overview of an IDRC sponsored project
    (1995) Hall, Budd L
    Dr. Budd L. Hall presents an overview of a research project on transformative learning in environmental action, carried out with colleagues at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, York University, and partner organizations in Brazil. The project grew out of work around the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the Treaty on Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and focused on what people learn through environmental campaigns linked to food production, distribution, and consumption. Drawing on case studies from India, Sudan, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, and El Salvador, along with an international survey and a collective workshop, Hall and his co-researchers look at what needs to change in current systems, including life conditions, power relations, and ways of thinking, and set out ten principles of transformative learning, among them recovering a sense of place, reconnecting with nature, and recognizing historical struggles. The paper also describes practical methods used across the case studies, such as community meetings, learning from elders, and seed festivals, along with possible indicators of success. Hall notes that although computer networking was planned as a central tool, it ultimately played only a minor role in the project.
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    Reflections on the impact of Mwalimu Nyerere’s vision on adult and non-formal education
    (2021) Kassam, Yusuf; Hall, Budd L
    How does Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s vision of adult education guide us in planning development in changing times? In this chapter, Dr. Budd Hall and Yusuf Kassam revisit the work, vision, principles and institutional innovations that shaped adult and non-formal education in Tanzania during the 1970s. Writing from their own lived involvement at the Institute of Adult Education, the University of Dar es Salaam and later the International Council for Adult Education, the authors recount the literacy campaigns, radio learning groups and the training of adult educators under Nyerere’s leadership. Such initiatives led to dramatic reductions in illiteracy in the 1970s. Central to Nyerere’s vision was the integration of education into everyday life as a process rooted in socialist development. However, as capital driven priorities have reshaped Tanzania’s development trajectory, the authors ask what remains of this vision. They argue for reinvigorating literacy and adult education as critical tools to address contemporary challenges including climate change and deepening socio-economic inequalities.
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    A river of life: Learning and environmental social movements
    (Interface: A journal for and about social movement, 2009) Hall, Budd L
    What and how can we learn from social movements? According to Dr. Budd Hall, social movements are intense locations for knowledge to come together and for learning to happen. They are seen as one of the best routes to social transformation because they bring together action, learning and social change. In this 2009 paper, Dr. Hall reflects on the epistemic value of social movements in the creation of knowledge. He begins by exploring what a social movement is and outlines its characteristic features as discussed by different schools of thought. The paper is a collaborative effort involving teams from three organisations and presents qualitative analyses based on case studies of environmental social movements from countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Sudan, India, Canada and many more. From these cases, the paper formulates key principles of environmental social movement learning, including seeing humans as part of nature rather than separate from it, deconstructing power relations in our relationship with nature and with each other as a first step toward transforming them, and several other interconnected insights. Through both theoretical reflection and grounded case studies, Hall argues that social movements, while leading to social transformation, also facilitate deep personal transformation by creating powerful spaces for learning.
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    From clarity to anarchy: Participatory research approach (A critique of "The methodology of the participatory research approach")
    (1979) Tandon, Rajesh
    This paper presents conceptual arguments to delineate the methodology of participatory research approach. After presenting an excellent analysis of the social and professional contexts of the origin of PRA, the authors describe various points of view which are broadly subsumed under PRA. The degree of researcher's political activism is seen as the main dimension on which these various points of view differ.
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    Asian regional participatory research network: A note
    (1985) Tandon, Rajesh
    Dr. Rajesh Tandon's 1985 note reviews seven years of the Asian Regional Participatory Research Network, outlining its theoretical orientation and administrative structure. He argues participatory research in Asia has become part of the organized struggles of local people, challenging expert authority and helping communities build their own strength. The work has centered on five group-, workers, the rural poor, tribals, women, and urban slum dwellers, approached from a clear position alongside the oppressed rather than through debates over methods. On the administrative side, he records decisions from the December 1983 Manila meeting: regional coordination staying with the Society for Participatory Research in Asia, New Delhi, and patchy communication between regions. The note closes by asking someone else to take over as international coordinator after his three years in the post and calls for more inter-regional collaboration, possible residency exchanges, and a better networking system.
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    Knowledge and social change: An inquiry into participatory research in India
    (Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1985-10) Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
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    Participatory research international networking memo, March 15, 1985
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1985-03-15) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
    The March 1985 issue of the Participatory Research International Networking Memo, circulated by PRIA, reflects on the Bhopal gas tragedy and PRIA's efforts to document it for educational purposes through its collaboration with the Highlander Center. . A regional update reports on participatory research developments across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America. These include the formation of the Senegalese Association of Participatory Research, PRIA's own work on a participatory research and evaluation study, a workshop on the Koel-Karo dam project in India, and ongoing Bhopal-related investigation and mobilization. Other updates cover a databank on participatory research literature in Italy, a planned handbook on self-reliant development, a new Participatory Research Exchange in the UK, the use of participatory research within Quebec's feminist movement, and a proposed workshop on knowledge, education, and power in Canada. The memo closes with a list of new publications, including studies from Taiwan, Bangladesh, and Norway, and two videos, one on community responses to Bhopal and another featuring a conversation with Rajesh Tandon and Ganesh Pandey on the origins of participatory research in Asia