Knowledge Democracy / Participatory Research

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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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1975 - 19798

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End date: 1979Subject: search.filters.subject.Global

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 21
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    Rural technology and collective analysis: Improving water supplies and sanitation
    (1979) Jackson, Ted
    The late 70s witnessed the problem of the insufficient supply of water and sanitation in rural areas become a serious threat to health and everyday living. Set in this period, this paper aims to demonstrate the way in which the described issue integrated into the life of the villages and towns. In this way, the research was concentrated on the implementation of technologies and the ideas behind them and the reactions of people who were a part of the process. This paper, therefore, tries to demonstrate the importance of such projects in context of changing people’s perceptions and building awareness, rather than focusing on the scale of the innovation itself. The research, thus, raises more questions than it answers, leaving the reader amazed by the ability of one idea to change the lives of thousands of people but at the same time skeptical about the potential role of similar movements in other contexts.
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    Monitoring and evaluation
    (0000) Satyamurti, V.
    In this article, V. Satyamurthi discusses the need for monitoring and evaluation in sustaining the efficiency and long-term relevance of social programmes designed to strengthen citizens’ capacities to participate fully in social, economic, and political life. He traces the growing emphasis on monitoring and evaluation from the early 1950s, and more sharply in the 1970s, when international development assistance expanded and demands for accountability increased. At the same time, the article notes important critiques of conventional approaches that relied excessively on measurement, targets, and narrow indicators, arguing instead for a stronger learning process orientation. The article clearly explains the distinction between monitoring and evaluation, their core components, indicators, and the principles of participatory monitoring and evaluation. Particular attention is given to assessing the progress of community groups toward self reliance over time. In doing so, it demonstrates that participatory evaluation assesses the appropriateness of present goals and of the institutions that define those goals, making it a fundamental part of meaningful social programmes.
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    Non-formal adult education as an entry point for community organisation
    (0000) Ginny; Shrivastava, Om
    How can adult education be leveraged to organise communities? Non formal adult education, by virtue of its flexibility and close alignment with local needs, offers a strong entry point for community organisation. In this article, Ginny and Om Srivastava outline how adult education can be operationalised not merely as a literacy intervention but as a participatory process rooted in people’s lived realities aimed towards individual and social development. They emphasise that the core aim is not limited to reading and writing, but to enable individuals to understand their social conditions, develop critical awareness, and begin to act collectively. Literacy, functional knowledge, and consciousness raising are seen as interconnected pathways through which people can recognise their own potential and organise for change. The article further details how such programmes must be grounded in the community through immersion, participatory methods, and locally relevant materials. Adult education centres, when designed as shared spaces of dialogue and reflection, can evolve into forums for collective decision making and action. In this sense, adult education becomes not an end in itself, but a starting point for building confidence, leadership, and sustained community organisation.
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    Knowledge as a commodity and participatory research
    ( Prospects, 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 handbook for community groups
    (International Council for Adult Education, 1978-06) Barndt, Deborah; Conchelos, Greg; Etherington, Alan; Galindo, June; Hall, Budd L; Harasim, Linda; Jackson, Ted; Marino, Dian; Tobias, Kathy; Vigoda, Al; Correia, Dianne; Icaza, Bernardita; Mansfield, Jennifer
    This handbook is about doing participatory research in local groups and communities, prepared in 1978 by the Participatory Research Project Group at the International Council for Adult Education. It is written for community groups without the money, professional training, or institutional support that usually make research an exclusive activity. Three ideas run through the book: participatory research is a method of social interaction built on full community involvement, an educational process that raises awareness of local problems, and a means of acting on what the research finds. Control over how information is gathered, analyzed, and used is meant to stay with the community throughout. A circular model called the research puzzle organizes the handbook's practical sections, moving groups through knowing their situation, identifying resources and issues, gathering and understanding information, acting, and reflecting. A sample profile index built around a housing cooperative and six case studies from Canadian communities, unions, and cooperatives ground these ideas in practice. The authors call it a first draft and invite readers to help shape what comes next.
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    Participatory research- An exploratory statement
    (0000) Tandon, Rajesh
    In this paper, Dr. Rajesh Tandon examines the limitations of conventional research that contributed to the emergence of Participatory Research. He identifies concerns such as the emphasis on objectivity, limited attention to the use of knowledge, the assumption that research is value-neutral, and the concentration of control over the research process and its outcomes in the hands of researchers. The paper distinguishes Participatory Research from academic, policy, and evaluation research by comparing who influences the selection of research problems, methods, and outcomes at different stages. It outlines an ideal participatory process based on shared decision-making, collaborative research design, and the joint collection and interpretation of data. Tandon also differentiates Participatory Research from Action Research by highlighting the researcher's explicit ideological position and the active involvement and control of participants throughout the inquiry. The paper concludes by identifying questions related to the validation of knowledge beyond conventional standards, the broader outcomes of participatory inquiry, and the political nature of research in social settings; presenting these as issues to be explored through participatory practice rather than resolved conceptually.
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    Participatory training: Philosophy and perspective
    (0000) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
    The paper examines the assumptions underlying participatory training as a response to systems of inequality that concentrate power and control over the minds of ordinary people. Education, media and institutional knowledge production have historically devalued popular knowledge and eroded the self-confidence of ordinary people to think, act and transform their own realities. The paper proposes a set of guiding beliefs, termed articles of faith, centred on the capacity of ordinary people to learn, change and grow, as the basis for translating these ideas into practice. Conditions required for this translation include respecting learners and their experience, creating structured opportunities for sharing and critical reflection, strengthening self-esteem, and establishing mutuality between learner and trainer within a learner-centred and learner-controlled process. Training is presented as an ongoing, long-term intervention rather than an isolated event, directed toward generating new knowledge and countering hegemonic control. The paper closes by stating that trainers must first clarify their own assessment of reality, their vision of a better world, and their guiding articles of faith before designing training programmes.
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