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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Now showing 1 - 10 of 25
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    Action research in universities and higher education worldwide
    (SAGE Publications, 2015) Boden, Rebecca; Greenwood, Davydd J; Hall, Budd L; Levin, Morten; Marshall, Judi; Wright, Susan
    The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research is a two-volume work of entries on action research, compiled by a team of editors and specialists in different areas of the field. Greenwood specializes in general action research, while Coughlan and Dick specialize in organization development. Brydon-Miller, Flicker and Hall work in community-based action research, and Friedman in organizational behaviour. Sankaran specializes in action research as a meta-methodology, Gaya in agency and activism, and Zhao in educational action research. Guhathakurta, Jaitli and Tandon specialize in participatory action research. The editors sought entries from 200 researchers. The topics are extensive and include biographies of well-respected action researchers, concepts, epistemologies, ethics, goals, methods, methodologies, organizations and movements, philosophical underpinnings, settings, skills, spirituality, theories and tools.
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    Knowledge Democracy, Transformation and Higher Education
    (2013-05-15) Hall, Budd L
    In this paper, Budd Hall examines what the waning confidence in a one size fits all global economy and the Western canon means for higher education and its social responsibility. Drawing on examples from Durban’s shack dwellers’ university, South Africa’s traditional healers, and PRIA in India, he introduces knowledge democracy as an alternative to the “knowledge economy” and “knowledge society”. The concept rests on three ideas: plural ways of knowing, plural forms of expression, and the use of knowledge to deepen democracy. He then turns to the community-university engagement movement as a promising site for institutional change. The paper closes with the 2013 Barcelona meeting of global engagement networks, convened by Guni to advance a shared agenda for action.
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    University of Victoria task force on community-based research: Towards a structure for community-based research University of Victoria: Phase II
    (2005) Keller, Peter; Hall, Budd L
    This document was prepared by the University of Victoria Task Force on Community-Based Research, co-led by Peter Keller and Budd L. Hall. It explains the background to Phase II of the work on creating a structure to support community-based research (CBR) at the university, starting with a 2005 forum that drew more than 80 academics. The document uses a three-part definition of CBR as collaborative, as democratising knowledge, and as aimed at social action and social justice. It then sets out the next steps in the consultation, including talking with community partners, reviewing models from elsewhere, recommending a steering committee, identifying networks and funding sources, and exploring UVic’s hosting of the 2007 Community-University Expo.
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    Call for Afro-centric theory and practice in community based research and engagement closing remarks to African regional conference on university-community partnerships in Dakar, March 25-26, 2011
    (2011-03-26) Hall, Budd L
    In these closing remarks to the African Regional Conference on University-Community Partnerships, held in Dakar in March 2011, Budd L. Dr. Hall argues that community-based research and engagement have African roots. He opens with a poem, “Creation Song”, and then recalls African thinkers and activists, including Senghor, Cissé, Kane, Diop, Nyerere and Cabral, whose work laid the ground for participatory research. Hall also points to the damage done to African higher education by World Bank policies and by the recruitment of African students into northern universities. He calls for universities in Africa that rest on African history, knowledge and languages, and for an Afro-centric theory and practice of community-based research and engagement.
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    Imagine/Learning: Thoughts from Two adult educators
    (Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, 2014) Hall, Budd L; Clover, Darlene E.
    Does it matter where the academic home of the study of adult education is? In this paper we share our reflections on the implications of the institutional location of the discipline of adult education within universities in Canada and elsewhere. We speak of the historic tensions between the less structured and often transformational vision of adult education and the highly regulated learning contexts of schooling, and we suggest adult education theory and practice can be found in many other disciplinary clusters in all our universities. Wherever the formal study for adult education is located, its purpose is always to strengthen capacity for resistance and transformation.
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    Mobilisation des connaissances de la communauté et du milieu universitaire en vue d’un changement en profondeur : L’évolution de la Chaire UNESCO sur la recherche communautaire et la responsabilité sociale en enseignement supérieur | Mobilizing community and university knowledge for transformative change: The evolution of the UNESCO Chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education
    (Commission canadienne pour l’UNESCO, 2017) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
    La Chaire UNESCO sur la recherche communautaire et la responsabilité sociale en enseignement supérieur a été créée en juin 2012 dans la foulée de la 2e Conférence mondiale de l’UNESCO sur l’enseignement supérieur, qui s’est déroulée à Paris en juillet 2009. Rajesh Tandon, Ph. D. et Budd Hall, Ph. D., ont été nommés cotitulaires de cette chaire. Cet article retrace les origines de la chaire et examine les contributions apportées jusqu’à ce jour ainsi que les leçons stratégiques que l’UNESCO, les décideurs politiques, les praticiens et les universitaires peuvent en tirer.
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    Strengthening community university research partnerships: A global study of effective institutional arrangements for the facilitation and support of research partnership between community groups and universities.
    (UVic & PRIA, 2015-07) Tremblay, Crystal; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh; Singh, Wafa
    The practices of community-based research (CBR) and all of its variations have developed and evolved over the past 35 years. With roots in the Global South the practices have spread throughout the international development community and supporting bodies such as IDRC. Over the past 15 years, CBR has been ‘discovered’ in the Global North as the Carnegie and WK Kellogg Foundations, the European Union, the Research Councils of the UK and Canada and the AUCC have been promoting research partnerships as key engagement strategies for higher education. A variety of institutional structures are being created to facilitate authentic and respectful research partnerships. Community-University research partnerships are therefore no longer a South or a North issue, but are an evolving global field of action with several global networks supporting them, including the Canadian-based Global Alliance for Community Engaged Research (GACER). Our ability to benefit from the promises of drawing the resources of universities further into the solution of community problems on their terms depends in part on our answers to several questions: 1. What are the institutional arrangements and processes that show the most promise in facilitating effective, respectful and impactful community university research partnerships? 2. What are the institutional policies needed to mainstream CBR? What are the most promising policies that national governments and funding bodies could implement to improve the quality of CBR and create effective structures and processes? To answer these questions we have carried out five steps: A global survey, case studies, systematisation process, knowledge dissemination and policy dialogues. The deliverables will include recommendations for the future development of the field shared on virtual platforms of the UNESCO Chair and through regional policy dialogues, development of targeted policy briefs, a practical e-handbook on best practices and an e-book on the theory and practices of facilitating community university partnerships. This final report provides an overview of progress and project activities, research outcomes and knowledge mobilization efforts and highlights the main research findings from a global survey (phase I) and country case studies (phase II). We have completed all research activities and are currently in the process of finalizing the open source e-book highlighting the main research findings and a practical handbook. The case studies illustrate how country policies on community-university partnerships are being institutionalized and practiced at the level of Higher Education Institutions and Civil Society Organizations.
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    Community-university engagement in a time of COVID-19
    (2020) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd L
    Dr Budd Hall and Dr Rajesh Tandon reflect on how COVID-19 is reshaping community-university engagement, collapsing the physical boundary between town and gown as students and academics work from home. The pandemic has exposed a stark digital divide, with universities in high-income countries far better placed to sustain online teaching than those in low-income countries. One familiar approach treats science and academic expertise as the sole authority in a crisis. Another approach is gaining ground through the pandemic instead, one that brings local knowledge, citizen science and community wisdom into direct partnership with formal research, so findings reach the public faster than conventional academic channels allow. The paper suggests this shift tests whether higher education is genuinely committed to its communities or only performing engagement. It closes with practical directions for the future, from redesigning curricula around field study to reviewing knowledge systems through an ecology of epistemologies.
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    International collaboration for changing the culture of research: The UNESCO Chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education
    (Autonomie Locali e Servizi Sociali, 2020-04-01) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
    This paper traces the development of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, established through the long-standing collaboration of Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon. It explains how the Chair promotes community-based participatory research by strengthening partnerships between universities, civil society organizations, and local communities across the Global South and the excluded North. This work includes global studies, open-access publications, international networks, and the K4C Consortium. Engaged research also supports the SDGs by fostering knowledge co-creation and socially responsible, locally grounded higher education. The paper argues that transforming research culture demands collaboration, knowledge democracy, and closer academia-community links to tackle social and environmental challenges.
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    Bridging knowledge cultures: A guide for community practitioners and community organizations
    (UNESCO Chair, 2024) Lepore, Walter; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
    This guide by Walter Lepore, Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon is about helping community practitioners and organisations build stronger research partnerships with universities. It draws on the larger Bridging Knowledge Cultures project, which studied ten K4C hubs across Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Colombia and Canada. The book explores partnerships in areas such as fishing communities, maternal health care, waste management, and early childhood education. Community knowledge is rooted in lived experience and oral tradition, while academic knowledge is typically validated through peer review and disciplinary standards, a gap that often leaves community knowledge undervalued within formal academic settings. It closes with practical recommendations for practitioners facilitating collaboration between communities and universities, pointing to trust, mutual respect, and the recognition of practices like storytelling as legitimate forms of knowledge

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