Co-Construction of Knowledge

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Start date: 1990End date: 1999

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    A North-South convergence on the quest for meaning
    (Sage, 1996) Fals Borda, Orlando
    Personal experience in Latin America led the author from academic work to fieldwork in participatory action research (PAR). This type of research implies a quest for meaning not only in life experiences but also within the intellectual endeavor. A comparison is made between Agnes Heller's version of such a quest and a previous attempt made in Colombia during the period when PAR was being constructed.
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    Building in dialogue between consumers and staff in acute mental health services
    (Systemic Practice and Action Research, 1998) Wadsworth, Yoland; Epstein, Merinda
    This paper describes some aspects of the methodology, material, and findings from a lengthy participatory action research engagement by a consumer organization in Australia, which was undertaken in collaboration with staff at a major public psychiatric hospital and then went on to involve "players" throughout the local state, and national mental health services system. A small first phase established a dialogic methodology for the exchange of experiences and thinking between staff and consumers. The purpose of the second phase of the research was to explore how consumers' voices might be heard, and how staff-consumer communication about that feedback, might be "built in" to ongoing organizational structure and culture. Systems thinking about defensive routines, silences, and voice-as-discourse is reported as offering a possible way of cracking the puzzle of the closed-loop cycle of claim/blame-defense-and-counter-claim/blame-defense that has been characteristic to date.
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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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    Participatory research for people's empowerment
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1999) Prasad, B. Devi; Rao, K. Visweswara
    As new ways of linking knowledge with social change were being sought, participatory research emerged as an approach that questioned the distance between academic inquiry and people’s lived realities. This paper examines participatory research as an approach to knowledge creation that is closely tied to community involvement and social change. Drawing from field experiences, the research demonstrates how engaging people directly in the research process challenges traditional academic hierarchies and foregrounds the realities of the marginalized groups. By placing communities at the center, participatory research shifts the role of the researcher from being an external expert to a facilitator of collective inquiry and action. This approach generates new knowledge while building local capacity and solidarity, and identifying and implementing practical, contextualized solutions to pressing issues. At the same time, PR highlights the tensions between academic institutions that emphasize objectivity and technical expertise, and community groups that prioritize lived experience and immediate outcomes. Despite these differences, PR demonstrates its strength in bridging gaps between theory and practice, institutions and communities, and knowledge and action- making research a transformational process.
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    Adult education, culture development and social movements: The contemporary challenge
    ( Society for Participatory Research In Asia (PRIA), 1993-04-27) Tandon, Rajesh
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    Civil society and construction of knowledge systems
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1997-06-01) Tondon, Rajesh
    Modern systems of knowledge have largely been shaped by the state and the market, yet both have left little room for the lived realities of ordinary people. This paper positions civil society as a third arena in which knowledge is generated, one grounded not in abstract theory but in everyday practice, collective memory, and problem-solving. It argues that knowledge forms such as oral, experiential, intergenerational etc, are vital to understanding social life, even as they remain marginalized by formal institutions. By contrasting these dynamics with the dominant knowledge systems of state and corporate actors, the study opens up new questions about how knowledge is produced, legitimized, and used in society.